


Love is Blind: A Sanvers AU

by performativezippers



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Background Rizzles, F/F, Love is Blind AU, Reality TV, Rizzoli and Isles crossover sort of, Weird dating AU, love is blind, why the fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 40,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23159653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/performativezippers/pseuds/performativezippers
Summary: “Welcome, Ladies, to the second season of Love is Blind! As you know from watching last season of our show Love is Blind, this is an experiment. Is love really blind? Can people fall in love, and get engaged, without ever seeing each other?”Alex catches sight of the camera and cringes, hoping they didn’t see her rolling her eyes. She’s not going to be good at having a poker face, even though Kara warned her specifically about it. She walks directly to the kitchen and pours herself a double scotch. Why the fuck did she come here, again?Aka: Alex + Maggie + Love is Blind
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer
Comments: 1014
Kudos: 684





	1. Welcome to Love is Blind

**Author's Note:**

> You can blame @AletheaMB on twitter for giving me the idea to write this, and my brain for making it so damn long.
> 
> I hope this brightens up your social distancing! I'll be trying to post a chapter a day.
> 
> And please, please, please. If at all possible, stay at home and practice social distancing. Please protect everyone around you. Love, a very immune compromised person who could very realistically die from this <3
> 
> ___
> 
> This is clearly based on Netflix's new reality tv dating show, "Love is Blind." You don't need to have seen it for this. Just know that the premise is that you date/fall in love/get engaged before you see each other, and then lots of things happen after that. It's totally wild. In the first season, there was a long incident of biphobia that was never properly addressed and handled horribly! Hopefully this is a bit of a palate cleanser from that. All chapter titles are episode titles.
> 
> Enjoy!!
> 
> P.S. Also apparently I can't write a reality tv au without Jane and Maura being in it?? Let me know if you think I should tag as a Rizzles crossover.

**DAY 0: WELCOME TO LOVE IS BLIND**

“Welcome, Ladies, to the second season of Love is Blind! As you know from watching last season of our show _Love is Blind_ , this is an experiment. Is love really blind? Can people fall in love, and get engaged, without ever seeing each other?”

His wife, who clearly spent hours in hair and makeup this morning, takes up the script seamlessly. “As you saw last season, for some people, love was indeed blind. They followed this experiment to the end. They dated, got engaged, and got married. But for others, love wasn’t truly blind. They dated here, and got engaged, but at the alter, confronted with the ultimate choice, they said no. What will you say?”

He clears his throat. Alex hates him already, not just for introducing himself as ‘And _obviously_ , I’m Nick Lachey,’ but also for his suit and his smug smile. Like he’s better than them just because he’s famous and already married to this perfectly packaged sexy corporate barbie.

“Our experiment is a little different this year, as you know. Love isn’t just between a man and a woman out in the world anymore, so it isn’t in here either.” Alex rolls her eyes. _Anymore_? Please. Plus, they know this. They all signed up for this stupid show and made their selections months ago.

She catches sight of the camera and cringes, hoping they didn’t see her. She’s not going to be good at having a poker face, even though Kara warned her specifically about it.

“This season, you told us if you wanted to date men, women, or both in the pods. For that reason, we aren’t housing all the girls together, and all the guys together. You’re living in smaller groups, and spending time together in these smaller suite groups for the first part of this experiment, so that you won’t be living with someone you might be dating in the pods.”

“In this suite, we have Whitney, Olivia, Morgan, Destiny, Tamara, and Alex. Get to know each other ladies, and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow you’ll have your first dates!”

They film the speech a few more times to get the right camera angles and the right reactions from Alex and the rest of the girls. Alex is melting under the lights before they finally wrap it, and Nick, Vanessa, and their camera people hustle away.

The four remaining camera people huddle around, with producers intermixed. Alex walks directly to the kitchen and pours herself a double scotch.

Why the fuck did she come here, again?

* * *

“In this suite, we have Todd, Matt, Bradley, Duke, Jasper, and Maggie. But don’t get too excited, gentlemen. Maggie is here just to meet women, so she’s not going to be dating you in the pods.”

“Although, of course, she may be dating some of the same women you are!”

Duke and Bradley in particular look shocked and upset by that last comment, and Maggie rolls her eyes. She manages to make eye contact with Jasper, clearly the bisexual guy in the mix, and he impressively manages to scoff without attracting the cameras.

She hadn’t realized she’d be living with men during this first part of the experiment. She figured she’d be living with straight women, and this is definitely worse. Being a lesbian doesn’t make her a dude, something she’s already brought up to the producers twice.

“Maggie, not again,” Jim sighs, holding up his hand, when she approaches him after Nick and Vanessa are done, her face set. “I already told you. The bisexual women are living with the straight women, and the bisexual men are living with the straight men. The gay women are living with men, and the gay men are living with women. It’s the easiest way.”

“I’m not a man, Jim. And gay men aren’t women.”

Jim looks like he doesn’t know if he wants to shake her or shotgun several beers. “No one is saying that you are, Maggie, but this is how it is. End of discussion.”

He walks away, and Maggie heads directly to the kitchen. If she’s going to be sharing a bathroom with five men, she’s going to need to get deep into the scotch, stat.

* * *

**DAY 1: IS LOVE BLIND?**

“Hello?”

“Hi.”

“Um, I’m Alex.”

“Nice to meet you, Alex. I’m Maxwell.”

Alex raises her eyebrows and is immediately grateful that he can’t see her face. They’re in the pods, and this is her first date. Although, ‘date’ seems a little generous. She’s sitting on a relatively uncomfortable couch, holding a glass of water and a notebook on her lap to take notes on each person she meets. The room is dark, the walls covered with weird crushed velvet partitions in dark shades of muted reds and purples. There’s a thick carpet under the couch, and a strange poof that seems to serve as both a coffee table and an ottoman. And right in front of the couch is a floor to ceiling strip of tinted glass, about three feet wide. It’s like where a door would be, or a fireplace and chimney, and it’s clearly where she’s supposed to look to talk to her date. He’s sitting in another pod, probably identical to this one, staring at the same strip of glass.

The glass is thick, mottled, and blue. There’s no way to see through it, and it looks thick enough that she won’t even make out shadows or anything pressed up against it. The rooms are soundproof from the outside, but microphoned on the inside, so they don’t have to shout to be heard.

And the most important thing, the reason for this whole show, is that Alex can’t see Maxwell. And he can’t see her making faces at how douchey his name is.

“Maxwell, huh? Not Max or anything?”

It’s quiet for a second, and Alex realizes how fucking disconcerting it is to not be able to see. She’s trained in reading body language. She’s a really physical person, always much better at throwing fists and rolling eyes than using her words. It’s why Kara forced her to sign up for this stupid show, but it’s only just now starting to feel like a handicap.

“Max is okay. But I prefer Maxwell. It sets me apart, you know.”

Alex manages to hum in agreement, but she’s already doodling on Maxwell’s page in her notebook.

This might be a very long week.

* * *

“Hello?”

“Hi.”

“Hey. I’m Maggie.”

“Jane.” The voice coming through is husky and low, and just so dykey immediately. Maggie likes it.

“How’s it going, Jane?”

“Uh…pretty weird, honestly.”

Maggie can’t help but laugh. “Yeah, dude. For real.”

“It’s uh…” Maggie can almost hear a background sound, like Jane is flipping through her copy of the notebook that Maggie has resting on her own thighs. “It’s a lot weirder than I thought it would be.”

“Yeah, for me too. I’m used to talking to people all day, every day, to learn stuff about them, but I never really thought about how much I learn from body language.”

“Exactly! I feel…I mean, blind, I guess. Which I know is the point, but…you know.”

“Totally.”

“Okay,” Jane says, “Let’s get this shit out of the way right now. What’s your baseball team?”

“Toss up between the Gotham Knights and the National City Sharks. But, I’m not picky. Anyone but the Yankees and Metropolis. You?”

“Yes! _Fuck_ the Yankees! I’m Red Sox nation, baby.”

“Ahh.” Maggie leans back on the couch, settling in. “You from Boston, then?”

“You couldn’t tell from the accent?”

Maggie furrows her eyebrows. Is she losing her touch? “No, not really.”

“I guess I’ve been toning it down lately. But trust me, one second with my ma, and the Southie jumps back out.”

“I dated a girl from Boston once. I swear to god, I thought she was joking when she was on the phone with her parents.”

“Nah,” Jane says, her a’s suddenly nasal and harsh in that particularly Boston way. “Nah we dahnt jahk abaht how we tahk.”

Maggie almost snorts, and she hears Jane chuckling from beyond the wall.

This might not be so bad, actually.

* * *

Alex collapses on the couch back in their suite, her arm thrown over her eyes.

“That bad?”

She moves her arm enough to crack open one eye. It’s Tamara and Olivia. They’re not as annoying as Whitney and Morgan, so she lets herself groan. “I swear to god, the last guy I talked to was a legit neo-nazi. Who lets people like that onto these shows?”

Tamara, who is black, and Olivia, who is from Guatemala, both snort. “Okay, what’s his name?” Tamara asks. “Lemme knock him off my list real quick.”

“Um, Ben. Ben Lockwood.”

Tamara literally crosses him off the list in her notebook. Alex likes her.

“How were your dates?”

Tamara shrugs. “Okay. Nothing magical so far.”

But Olivia looks excited. Alex sits up. “Olivia, anything to share with the class?”

And Olivia spends the rest of their break gushing about some guy named Matt who apparently she’s already most of the way in love with.

It just makes Alex even more sure that she’s going to leave here, alone, embarrassed, and even more pissed off at the world than she was last week. And that’s certainly saying something.

* * *

“Hello?”

“Hi.” The voice is low and soft, and normally Alex would like it, but it’s sending chills up her spine.

It’s a woman’s voice.

Alex has never dated a woman before.

“Hi.”

There’s a bit of a pause. Alex wonders if she’s going to throw up.

“I’m Maggie,” the voice says.

Maggie. Maggie. That’s…yup. That’s a girl’s name. Alex wipes her sweaty palms on her pants, wishing she had a gun or a knife or something else comforting to hold right now. While she could absolutely kill someone with this notebook, it would require a level of creativity she’s not sure she can muster in her current sense of panic.

“What’s your name?”

Fuck.

Alex is already failing at basic human interaction, and she doesn’t know much about lesbians, but she’s pretty sure they follow the usual conventions of galactic conversation. Fuck.

“Um, sorry. Right. I’m…” she lets out a big breath, trying to blink back the tears that are suddenly, horribly, welling up in her eyes. “Sorry. I’m…fuck. I’m Alex.”

She wipes her face, angry at herself for crying and for being filmed and for being on this stupid date on this stupid show and for being on this fucking planet at all.

“What’s wrong, Alex?”

“I—nothing!” But her voice cracks a little, almost squeaking, and it’s not very compelling.

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Maggie says, and something about her voice is soothing even though all the hairs on the back of Alex’s neck are standing up. “But I’m here if you want to. Like confession or something.”

Alex chokes out a little sound. “I’m Jewish. Never really understood the whole confession thing.”

She hears a low chuckle from the other side of the glass. “Honestly, I was practically born in the Catholic church, and I don’t really go for it either. Seems like the lack of accountability hasn’t been doing the Church a lot of favors lately.”

Alex lets out another big breath. That’s…that’s something she would say, or one of her friends. That’s okay. That’s not so scary.

“Are you, um,” she grasps around for a conversation topic to distract Maggie from how weird she’s being. “Do you still go to church?”

There’s a long pause. Alex had thought it was an innocuous question, but the silence says maybe not so much.

“Uh, wow. Getting right into it, huh?”

“Sorry, you don’t have to—”

“No, it’s okay. I, uh, no. I know some of us have made our peace with the church hating us, but I haven’t.”

Alex tilts her head, confused. She speaks before she thinks. “Us?”

Another long pause, this one more horrible than the last. Alex wants to rip down the glass and be able to look at Maggie. She wants to turn on her heel and never date Maggie again.

“Yeah, us. Queer people. Are you…you know you’re talking to a woman, right? This isn’t like, a production mistake?”

 _Fuck_. Fuck fuck fuck. “Fuck.”

Maggie laughs again, but this time it’s not a good laugh. Alex regrets ever growing vocal cords.

“Sorry. I, um…sorry.” Alex takes a breath and collects herself, forcing herself to _fucking get it together_ and taking deep breaths like before counting down to breach a building. “I’m sorry I’m being so weird. I’m…this is the first time I’ve ever been on a date with a woman. Or even, um. Even fully admitted to myself that I might…um. Want to be.”

Maggie’s voice is a little tight. “Alex, can you tell me…is this like a real thing you’re going through, or did you just say yes to dating women for the experience? Like a part of the experiment?”

“No,” Alex says quickly, tripping over herself to try to be clear. “No, I’m sorry, I wouldn’t do that. I mean, I know this is an experiment, but you’re not. And I’m not. I’m not…no. I don’t know what I’m doing or anything, but this is a real thing. For me.”

“Ahh. Okay.” Maggie takes a second, and Alex hates herself. She’s ready to pack her shit up and never think any of these thoughts ever again, but then Maggie talks again, and this time she doesn’t sound mad. “Well then, that’s a lot. I’ve been there. I’ve gone through it. It’s totally terrifying. How are you doing?”

Alex lets out a shaky breath, and feels her shoulders unclench a little bit. She’s absolutely fucking this up, but Maggie seems nice, and her voice is soothing. Alex drops her head onto the back of the couch and closes her eyes, giving up on staring at the mottled blue glass.

“Honestly, I have no idea.”

Maggie chuckles, and it makes Alex feel safe.

“I sort of can’t believe the first time I’m ever saying this, or doing it, is on fucking national television.”

Maggie makes a little squeaking sound, like maybe she’s holding back a curse word. It makes Alex want to see her. “Wow,” she finally says. “Yeah that’s…quite a way to come out.”

Alex gulps. “Yeah, I didn’t really think it through. I just…I got that survey, you know, and it asked you to check off who you were interested in, and I just…”

She presses her fingers into her eyes, trying not to cry anymore. “I just didn’t want to lie anymore.”

“Hey,” Maggie’s voice is still low and soothing but now it’s intent, like normally she might say _look at me_ before saying something serious. Alex wonders what she looks like.

“I totally get that. I remember feeling like that, like I was lying every second of my life. I got so tired of it, of lying to my family, and my friends, and the girl I liked. It was like…like every time someone would ask if I had a crush on boy, or if I thought some guy was cute, and I would just play along or whatever—I felt like I was swallowing sandpaper. I remember that. It was so hard.”

Alex can’t help it. She wipes the tears from her cheeks, and she swallows down a sob. “Yeah,” she manages. “Yeah, it hurts so bad.”

“I’m proud of you, Alex,” Maggie says, and she’s talking softly and slowly, like her words are just for Alex. Like she means them. “I’m so proud of you.”

Alex pulls a pillow into her chest. She lets those words sink into her skin. “Thank you,” she whispers, and she doesn’t think Maggie hears it.

But then, “You’re welcome, Alex,” she says. “Everyone deserves to come out to someone who is happy for them. Who will love them even more for it. You know?”

There’s weight there, but Alex isn’t ready to wade any deeper today. She does what she does best: she deflects. “Well, this is definitely the most fun date you’ve ever been on, huh? You come in here looking for a good time, and I just…drop a bomb on you.”

Maggie laughs. “Yeah, well, it’s not the first bomb that’s been dropped on me.”

“Well, you’re really good at it. You should be a professional or something.”

She laughs again. Alex likes it. Likes the sound, likes being the reason it’s happening. “If you find any full-time jobs for helping people come out, let me know.”

“As soon as they give us our phones back, I’ll troll craigslist for you.”

Maggie laughs again. Alex swallows, hard.


	2. Is Love Blind?

**DAY 2: IS LOVE BLIND?**

“How’s it going?”

Maggie flops onto the couch, beyond relieved to hear Jane’s voice. “Holy shit, dude. I had the most intense date yesterday.”

“True love?”

“No. I mean…no. She like…it was her first date with a woman.”

“Oh shit.”

“Yeah, dude! I mean she…she cried, Jane. She cried.”

“ _Fuck_.”

“Yeah.”

“What did you do?”

Maggie shrugs. “I told her I was proud of her.”

There’s a bit of a silence. “You’re a good person, Maggie.”

Maggie twitches, uncomfortable with the compliment. “I just wanted it to be okay for her.”

Jane is quiet for a minute. “How was it for you, your first time?”

Maggie looks quickly into the camera mounted right in front of her face. Jane is very cool and definitely family, but the camera will be sending this conversation right into the living rooms of millions of straight people. She’s not going to do this, not here. Not like this. But she’s not going to lie, either. Not to Jane. She deflects. “I mean, no one told me they were proud of me, that’s for sure.”

Jane snorts. “Yeah, me neither. My ma cried, and my pop never mentioned it again, like if we didn’t talk about it, it wouldn’t be happening. Old school Italians, you know.”

Maggie wishes they were together, drinking beer at some dive bar. She doesn’t feel a romance thing with Jane, at least not so far, but she definitely wants to be buddies. “I do know. I mean, mine are old school Mexicans, but basically the same.”

“Oh yeah. Catholic guilt to get married young, push out a bunch of babies, and cook up a storm for all the hapless men in your life.”

“Bingo.”

“Well, I’m glad you gave the late bloomer something better. That was good of you.”

Maggie picks at a loose thread on the pillow. “I hope she’s okay.”

“You gonna talk to her again?”

The answer should be no. Maggie doesn’t date women who are fresh off the boat, and it doesn’t get any fresher than Alex. She fucking cried in their date, for god’s sake. There are plenty of other women to meet here—lesbians like Jane and other bi women too—who definitely will have more experience with being queer.

But…something about Alex is pulling at her. Her voice, of course, was attractive. But mostly it was the puzzle of her. She was both the most guarded and the most vulnerable of anyone Maggie’s talked to through the wall. And after Alex had changed the subject away from coming out, she’d been fascinating. Well read, smart, interesting, sarcastic. Sharp. Funny.

She should say no, but, “Yeah. Yeah, I think I will.”

* * *

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s Maxwell.”

Alex rolls her eyes, but is relieved. A douchey dude is exactly what she needs right now. She knows exactly what this is.

“Hey. It’s Alex.”

“How are you doing, Alex? How have your dates with other men been so far?”

The assumption that she’s only dating men makes Alex’s body temperature rise, and she’s glad she doesn’t have her sister’s heat vision.

The anger makes her mean. “Below average. Including you.”

But he just laughs, like the narcissist he probably is. It helps Alex find her footing. She loves to spar with narcissistic dudes. Taking them down a peg just feels _so_ fucking good.

“So, Alex, what do you do? For work?”

Alex would love to say that she’s black ops fed who hunts aliens using guns and science, but obviously she can’t. J’onn and Winn had built her a truly beautiful cover story, and she recites it with gratitude.

“I’m an FBI agent.”

Maxwell is silent for at least two seconds, and Alex grins. Gotcha.

“Wow, I didn’t expect that.”

“What did you expect?”

“I’m not sure. Something less…”

Alex jumps in, ready to fight and forget that she’s ever been vulnerable even once in her life. “Less what? Powerful? Badass? Intimidating? Cool?”

But Maxwell scoffs, and Alex literally rolls up her sleeves, ready to spar through the glass. “Less jarheaded. I had thought you were smarter than that.”

Alex lets her grin turn truly evil. Guys are so stupid. Just because they’re always one dimensional doesn’t mean that women are.

“Well, Maxwell, because you’re wondering, I’ll let you know that I have an MD and a PhD in bioengineering. I’m a renown geneticist specializing in extraterrestrial DNA, RNA, and virology. And, yes, I’m also a jarheaded field agent, which means I know several very painful ways to kill you with my index finger.”

He’s silent for another long moment, and Alex smirks directly into the camera.

This is exactly what she needed.

* * *

“I like Maxwell,” Whitney says over dinner. They’re all eating salads and drinking wine. Alex wants a hamburger. “He’s so smart and funny. I was, like, laughing the whole time. I was like, what are you even talking about? You’re so funny.”

Alex scoffs into her salad. “He’s not as smart as he thinks he is.”

“Um, he’s like, an inventor. He’s _really_ smart.”

“He’s mediocre at best. He just talks a big game, that’s all.”

Whitney looks pissed. “How would you know?”

Alex shrugs, swallowing down her raw kale like it’s actually food. “Max Lord is nothing more than a reformed nerd with a God complex. Just like every guy I dated in college.”

Tamara snorts, and Olivia chokes on her wine. Destiny gives Alex a high five.

Morgan leans into Whitney. “He sounds super cute. You should totally go for it with him.” She shoots a disgusted look over to Alex. “Don’t let this bitter hag scare you off.”

Alex rolls her eyes. After dinner, she switches from wine to scotch.

Fighting with Maxwell was fun, but she’s already forgotten about it.

She can’t stop thinking about Maggie. She probably royally fucked that up—she’s sure Maggie won’t want to be on a date with her again, but there was something about her that was just…fuck. Something compelling.

Alex hasn’t wanted to smash through the glass for anyone else, but not knowing what Maggie looks like, what her expressions are, what her face was like when she said _I’m proud of you_ …it’s all Alex can think about.

* * *

**DAY 3: IS LOVE BLIND?**

“Hello?”

“Hi. I’m Kelly.”

“Hi, Kelly. I’m Alex.”

“Hi Alex. How are you doing today?”

Alex shrugs a little. She didn’t sleep well. She’s itchy. “I’m doing okay. How about you?”

“I’m doing very well. Having a good time so far.”

“Oh, um, good. That’s good.”

“So, Alex. Tell me about you.”

“Uh,” Alex scratches her nose. This feels a little more like a job interview than anything else. “What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with…why did you decide to come here and do this experiment?”

Kelly’s voice is very well moderated, like she’s used to holding herself in check. She’s not giving Alex anything. Maggie had been compassionate, and Maxwell has been a douche, and Matt has been kind and Bradley has obviously been a fuckboy, but Kelly is…nothing yet.

It sort of trips Alex up. “I, uh. Well. I haven’t exactly been successful in the dating arena, and I guess…my sister watched the last season, and she thought it might be good for me. To have time to just focus on this, you know. I’m usually so busy with work and everything. It’s easy to push all of this to the back burner.”

“How has that made you feel? Focusing on work instead of on your personal life?”

Alex blinks. This is much more like her sessions with the DEO therapist than any date she’s ever been on.

But, hey. Free therapy. Although…televised free therapy. She decides to walk the line.

“Um, mostly good, actually. I love my job, and I’m good at it. And I don’t know. Most of the time I’m happy on my own. But sometimes I wonder, and I know my sister worries about me.”

Kelly hums, exactly like a therapist. Alex decides to turn the tables. “What about you? Why did you come here?”

“I was interested in the experiment,” she says, her voice still completely measured. “And my last relationship was very serious, very intense, and I really…I loved her very much, and it’s been so difficult trying to find someone else. I was sure she was the love of my life, you know. And contemplating a life without her has been very challenging. And the dating pool of women who date women isn’t very big to begin with, and I’m also often busy with work. So I guess I thought this would be a good way to try something new. To see if I can change my patterns and change my mindset.”

“Wow,” Alex manages. “That’s like, the most self-aware I’ve ever heard someone be.”

Kelly laughs a little, finally. “Well, I am a therapist, so. That helps.”

“Ooh, a thousand points to me.”

A pause, then, “Excuse me?”

Alex flushes. “Oh, sorry. I just…I guessed you were a therapist, so…points to me.”

Kelly laughs again. “Yeah, people tell me that I often forget to turn off my therapist voice.”

Alex laughs too. “I get it. I carry a gun for work, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve accidentally worn it out with friends. It’s hard to strip off all the work stuff.”

“Exactly.”

* * *

Maggie blinks, walking out of the pods. She just had a first date with the strangest woman. She’d talked like an encyclopedia about everything from autopsies to designer shoes. (Maggie was obviously a lot more interested in the autopsies). Her name was Maura, and Maggie definitely isn’t interested in a relationship with her, but she kind of wants to keep talking to her through the wall. She was fucking fascinating.

She gets a glass of water, and then, hesitating, pours herself a scotch. It’s late on day three and she’s exhausted.

Dating blind is so much harder than dating in person, and she hadn’t realized how draining it would be.

She takes her double fisted beverages back into the pod and sets down the water, closing the door behind her.

“Hello?” It’s always so awkward, not knowing if the other person is already there or not.

But, “Hi.”

The voice is a little low and rich, but with something almost breathy behind it. Maggie blinks, quickly, noticing and slightly hating how her heart has risen up in her chest at the simple possibility.

“Hey, it’s Maggie,” she says, and she hopes.

“Hey, Maggie. It’s Alex.”

Maggie lets out a deep breath. She’s still standing, clutching her scotch in her hand. “Hey Alex,” she says, trying not to sound too excited.

“I, um…” Alex lets out a breath. She breathes so intentionally. Controlling herself with her breath. Maggie wonders if she does yoga. “I didn’t think you’d want to see me again. I mean, fuck, not _see_ …you know what I mean.”

Maggie grins. “Good surprise or bad surprise?”

The answer whooshes out of Alex, like she can’t say it fast enough. “Good surprise. Definitely good surprise.” Maggie grins, glad for the first time that Alex can’t see her.

“I, um,” Alex clears her throat, and Maggie hates that she finds it adorable. “I really want to thank you, for the other day. I was…I was a fucking mess, and you were so kind to me. I just…I want to know that I really…you didn’t have to take such good care of me. I’m really grateful.”

“You deserve to be taken care of,” Maggie says, and her voice is a little softer than she’d meant it to be. Who the fuck is this woman.

Alex laughs a little, clearly at herself. “Yeah, I’m…I guess I’m not very good at that.”

Maggie finally walks around the couch and sits down, cradling her scotch in both hands. “At what? Being taken care of?”

“Yeah.” Alex’s voice is soft now, and it’s like caramel inside of dark chocolate. Smooth and silky and a little husky. Kind and trusting and keeping her at arm’s length. “I’m usually the one taking care of everyone else, I guess.”

“Me too,” Maggie says softly, staring at the mottled blue glass.

“Who do you take care of?”

Maggie wants to reach through the wall and touch her.

“I mean, myself, first of all. I’m not…I’ve been on my own for a long time. And I’m a cop, so it’s my job to take care of everyone else.”

“You’re a cop?” Alex sounds different from everyone else—the other women have been intimidated or disinterested or immediately made handcuff jokes, except for Jane and Maura. Jane’s a cop too, so they’d bonded about that, and Maura’s a medical examiner, so they’d just talked about autopsies and causes of death. But Alex sounds pleased.

“Yeah, National City PD.”

“That’s awesome,” Alex says. “I’m FBI, myself.”

Maggie leans back into the couch. “Uh oh! I don’t think a fed like you wants to be seen with the likes of me. A lowly local cop.”

Alex laughs. “I guess I can lower my standards, just this once.”

“What do you do? Exactly?”

“I’m trained as a biologist,” Alex says, surprising the fuck out of Maggie. “That’s what I was recruited for. But I really love being in the field.”

Maggie grins at the enthusiasm in her voice. “What do you love about it?”

She takes a sip of scotch.

“I love…I loved the training. I was…I was in a really bad place before I was recruited. I was trying to finish my PhD, but I was drinking a lot, missing labs. I was on academic probation, actually. I was about to lose everything that mattered to me. I was lying to my sister, and my mom, and just…drowning. And I was…it was the first time I’d started to really wonder if I might like girls, and that was so scary. I just…threw myself at men and into bottles of vodka and just, I don’t know. Tried not to be myself, you know?”

Maggie nods, forgetting that Alex can’t see her. This woman on the other side of glass is quite possibly the most fascinating person she’s ever spoken to. She can’t for the life of her figure Alex out, and that never happens. “Yeah,” she finally fumbles out. “Yeah, I really do.”

Alex keeps going, and her voice is so passionate and soft and careful and free and Maggie wants to sink into it like a warm blanket on a cold night. “And so then I got recruited, and they trained me for the field first, before I even went back to working on my PhD. And the fighting just…I found myself again. I found my body. It had been so long since my body was anything to be proud of. It was just something I lugged around; fed, watered, threw at men, you know. It hadn’t made me happy in so long. And then I learned to fight, and to shoot, and throw knives, and all kinds of shit, and I just…it’s like I met myself for the first time in years.”

Maggie lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. “That’s beautiful, Alex.”

Alex laughs a little bit, at herself again, and Maggie wants to shake her and force her to accept the compliment. “I know it’s maybe a little psychotic to find myself through learning how to maim and kill people, but…I don’t know. It’s what happened.”

Maggie laughs. She likes this girl.

“And after that, the science came back to me, too. I finished the dissertation, easily. I started loving the work again.”

“That’s amazing.”

“Yeah, it was. But it’s…I love my job. So much. But I’ve been hiding behind it, I think.”

Maggie already knows the answer, but she asks it anyway. “Hiding from what?”

Alex is silent for a long second, and Maggie wants to see her so badly.

“From myself, I think. From my family. From who I am, and what I want.”

Maggie smiles a little. This girl is fucking something else. “And now?”

Alex chuckles again. “Now I feel like maybe I should have signed up for Naked and Afraid instead of this. Might have been easier.”

Maggie grins. “I mean, if you want to strip naked in your pod, you can get two birds with one stone.”

Alex barks out a laugh, and Maggie pats herself on the back. She likes making Alex laugh. It sounds like maybe she doesn’t laugh enough.

“What about you? What do you like about being a cop?”

Maggie tilts her head, considering the question. “I know it’s cliché, but I like helping people,” she says. “I always wanted to be a cop because my dad is one, but after I grew up, I had a hard time figuring out if I still wanted to do that.”

Alex hums like she gets it, and Maggie wonders what her parents’ jobs are.

“But eventually I decided that _not_ being a cop just because he’s one was just as bad as _only_ being a cop just cause he’s one, you know? Like I didn’t want to give him that control over me.”

Alex lets out a big breath, showing Maggie that she’s picking up what Maggie’s putting down, but she doesn’t interrupt with questions, which Maggie’s very grateful for.

“And I guess what I like best—I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love the gun range and everything—but every day when I go to work, I love solving the puzzles. Not just putting the pieces together, you know, but like, figuring out what the pieces even are. I love the challenge, and I’m good at it, and it’s so satisfying to help people. To help repair their lives, or give them closure, or whatever.”

Alex makes a little huffing sound. “Wow, that’s…that’s the one part I’m terrible at,” she laughs. “I love running the science—you know, not just running the labs, but inventing labs, or discovering things—and I love breaking down the doors and chasing the bad guys. But, oh my god, no. The actual solving of cases? The clues? The detective work? I’m absolutely useless. You must be…very impressive. That’s definitely the hard part.”

Maggie laughs. “How do you feel about the game of Clue?”

Alex laughs again. “I haven’t played it since I was a kid. But I was always more of a Battleship person myself.”

Maggie crosses her legs under herself, leaning forward, scotch forgotten. “Okay, real talk time. Be honest. Were you a Battleship cheater?”

Alex lets out the loudest, most surprised laugh. Maggie wonders if her nose is wrinkling up, or if her eyes are crinkling. “I one hundred percent was a Battleship cheater, yes.”

Maggie lets out her own burst of laughter.

“My favorite move was stacking them on top of each other.”

“Dude! Alex! That’s like, _really_ cheating.”

“What! What did you do?” Alex is still laughing, and Maggie wonders where she’s sitting. How she’s sitting. What she’s drinking.

“I used to have the ships touching each other, to make it confusing. So you wouldn’t know if you sunk a big one or a small one.”

Alex scoffs. “Junior league, Sawyer,” she says, and Maggie assumes she’s waving a hand around. “That’s baby shit.”

“I’m sorry, Doctor Danvers, not all of us are elite cheaters.”

Alex snorts. “Hey, I’ll take it. At least I’m not a sore loser like my sister.”

Maggie can’t help but laugh again. Her cheeks hurt a little. “I’d be a sore loser too, if I found you stacking your fucking ships!”

“Shut up,” she says, and her voice is perfect and she’s so fresh off the boat but she’s so…fuck. “And she’s a sore loser even when I don’t cheat, okay, Detective? She’s always peeking at my cards and stuff.”

Maggie rests her elbows on her knees and drops her chin into her hands, staring at the glass like she’s Supergirl and could bust right through it with the power of her want. “What’s worse? Peeking at cards or stacking ships?”

“Definitely peeking,” Alex says, without hesitation. “Cause now we’re adults, and loser has to pay for the takeout. She owes me a _lot_ of money.”

Maggie snorts, and she can feel Alex beaming from the other side of the wall.


	3. Is Love Blind?

**DAY 4: IS LOVE BLIND?**

**Confessional: Alex**

“A lot of people have been nice, and we’ve had good conversations, but the only person I keep thinking about is Maggie.” She’s looking directly into the camera, doing her best to ignore Jenna the producer sitting right next to it, feeding her questions and prompts.

“When do you think about Maggie?” Jenna asks. “Remember to answer in a complete sentence.”

“I…I think about her…I don’t know. All the time. I think about her when I’m talking to other people, you know, like, _what would Maggie say to that? Would that make Maggie laugh?_ And I think about her when I’m in the suite, too. I wonder about her—what she looks like, of course, but also what she likes. I think of things to ask her, like what tv shows she likes, and where she likes to go on vacation. And I think…I don’t know. I mean, I guess I wonder if she thinks about me, too.”

“Do you think she’s thinking about you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Alex, full sentences, please.”

Alex rolls her eyes but controls herself. This isn’t Jenna’s fault. Is the fucking stupid genre. They have to edit it so it looks like she’s just rambling, alone.

“Our first date was kind of a disaster. She’s the first person I ever told that I might like girls. I…even saying it right now is horrifying. And I…I mean, I fucking cried. It was awful. I couldn’t believe that she wanted to talk to me again. I think…I think if I were her, I don’t know. I don’t know if she’s thinking about me because I don’t know how much that ruined things for her.”

“Do you have feelings for her?”

Alex bites her lip, trying not to cry. Not here, in this perfectly lit studio with the weird background, and the cameras catching her from three angles at once. Not in front of Jenna. Not in front of the world. Not in front of J’onn and Winn and Kara and her mom.

“Do I have feelings for her? I…I don’t know. I wish I didn’t. I’m so…I’m so afraid.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“I’m afraid of having feelings for her. Because that would mean that I’m…that this is really true. That I’m this way.”

“What would that mean? If you were this way?”

Alex blinks. She doesn’t want to talk about this with anyone but Maggie.

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “I don’t know.”

* * *

**Confessional: Maggie**

“So, Maggie. Tell me about your dates. Who is sticking out for you?”

Maggie tucks her hair behind her ear. She hates the confessional. It’s so fake and there’s so much focus on her, and she can’t hold anything in her hands to ease her nerves.

“I mean, Jane, in a way.”

Jenna rolls her eyes. “Maggie, come on.”

Maggie holds up a hand in apology. “Sorry, sorry. Right. One of the people who sticks out for me is Jane. She’s so easy to talk to, and we’re very similar. I think we’re too similar to have a romantic connection, though. I want to be her friend, to go out for beers and talk about work and women, but I don’t think I want to like, romantically date her. But it’s been really nice to talk to her in the pods. It doesn’t feel like work. It’s easy with her, like we’ve known each other forever.”

“Who are you having a romantic connection with?” Jenna asks, clearly bored with talk of friendship that will surely be cut for time.

“It kind of freaks me out, but the person who I keep thinking about romantically is Alex.”

Jenna perks up at that. “Tell me about Alex.”

Maggie narrows her eyes. Excited Jenna is a very worrying thing.

“Alex is…she’s not my type at all. I’ve had really bad experiences in the past with girls who are just coming out.” Before Jenna can prompt, Maggie gives the info, saving the editors a bit of work. “All of them dumped me, pretty hard, and it was really rough. I’ve dated three women like that, and two of them decided that being bi or gay was too scary, and they hopped back in the closet and got with a guy, like, immediately. And the other girl decided that yeah, she was gay, but she just went for me cause I was the only gay girl she knew. The second she met someone else, she was, _whoosh_. Outta there. So Alex…Alex scares me.”

“What do you like about Alex?”

Maggie bites her lip. “What do I like about Alex? I…everything. I don’t know. I’m terrified of her, you know, cause she could hurt me, just like those other women did. But she’s…she’s so smart. I mean, obviously, with the PhD and everything, but she’s also quick. Like, our conversation is fast. It’s sharp, and it goes everywhere. From books to politics to types of policing to self-defense—she’s just so sharp. I like that. I like smart women. I like to be challenged. She challenges me—to keep up, to contribute. And she’s…”

“She’s what?”

“She’s both the most guarded and the most open person I’ve ever met. She’s both, like…I don’t know. Like she’d stab a stranger for the last French fry without a second thought, but she’d fucking lay down her life for you in a second. She’s…open about how she feels, which is the one thing I’m closed up about, but she’s got these super big walls, too. I can’t quite figure it out, and I want to.”

“She’s like a puzzle you want to solve.”

Maggie wrinkles up her eyebrows. “Not exactly. I’m not interested in her like, as a case to solve. It doesn’t feel like that. But I can’t guess what she’s going to do, or say next. She keeps surprising me, I guess. And I like that.”

“Do you think she likes you?”

Maggie lets out a huge, weighty breath. “I don’t know if she likes me back. It’s hard to not see her with other people, you know? I don’t know if she’s like this with everyone, or just with me. And coming out is really hard. I’m not…I really like her, but I’m not optimistic.”

* * *

Another date with Kelly is perfectly nice, but it’s still too much like therapy for Alex to have any romantic tingles with her. Alex keeps seeing Maxwell because it’s fun to fuck with him. She talks to Matt cause he’s nice and Duke because he’s a surfer and they have that in common. She keeps talking to Jane and Maura because they have a lot of work stuff they can talk about and they’re both super interesting, but she doesn’t want to reach through the wall and grasp them. She doesn’t wonder about their smiles or their hands.

Alex is living for her third date with Maggie.

It’s late on day four, and Alex goes into the pod in sweatpants and a Henley. She has a glass of scotch with her, and her notebook, and she doesn’t know who is going to be on the other side of the wall but she desperately hopes.

“Ow, fuck.”

Alex leans forward, her body wanting to rush through the wall to offer help. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Fuck. Sorry, I stubbed my toe, and I spilled. Hold on.”

Alex leans back. It’s Maggie. She’d know that voice anywhere, now.

There’s a bushing sound, like Maggie’s trying to sweep water off the couch. “Okay, good enough. Sorry. Hi.”

“Hi. Everything okay over there?”

There’s a pause for a second. “Alex, right?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Alex. And Maggie. Who possibly just broke a toe?”

Maggie laughs. “I don’t think so. But I’ve never broken a toe, so who the fuck knows.”

“It hurts like a bitch,” Alex advises, and Maggie laughs again.

“Personal experience there, Danvers?”

“Nah,” Alex says, kicking her feet up on the ottoman thingy. “That’s how they teach it in medical school.”

Maggie makes a weird sound. “Okay I know you’re joking, but, you…you didn’t go to medical school, right? You said PhD?”

“Oh,” Alex takes a sip of her scotch, closing her eyes in bliss. The show buys the good stuff. “Good memory, yeah, I said PhD. But I actually did go to med school, so I have an MD/PhD. But I’m not like, a practicing medical doctor.”

Maggie makes a choking sound, and Alex sits up again.

“Maggie? Please don’t choke to death. I can’t do the Heimlich through a wall.”

There’s gargling, like she’s trying to laugh but can’t breathe.

“Sorry,” she finally manages. “Sorry! I’m okay! Some of my scotch just went down the wrong pipe.”

“Hey!” Alex exclaims, holding her own drink up, completely idiotically. “I’ve got a scotch too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s my poison of choice, usually.”

And something in Maggie’s voice is ridiculously soft and tender when she says, “Mine too,” and Alex never really wants to cuddle anyone, but she would pay serious money to be able to wrap herself around Maggie right now.

“Okay, but wait. So you’re Doctor Doctor FBI Special Agent Danvers?”

“Technically, yes.”

“And you drink scotch.”

“Constantly.”

“And you cheat at Battleship.”

“Occasionally.”

“And you ride a ducati.”

“My baby, yes.”

“Okay,” Maggie says, and her voice sounds a little tight. Constrained. “Cool.”

“What? Is that bad?”

“No,” she says, the word almost throwing itself into the air between them. “No. It’s…ridiculously badass, that’s all. It’s…that’s just…” There’s a long pause. Alex holds her breath, all her muscles tensed.

Maggie finally lets out a puff of air. “That’s all stuff that makes me want to know you, you know?”

All of the tension pours out of Alex’s body. She shifts a little, laying down flat on the couch with a few pillows propped under her neck and shoulders.

“Everything you say makes me want to know you,” she says, her voice soft like maybe it won’t be such a big deal if Maggie can barely hear it.

* * *

**Confessional: Alex**

“The way I am with Maggie—the way I feel, the way I can say what’s true, how I can share my real thoughts and feelings with her—I don’t have that with anyone else in my entire life. I mean, I love my sister, but we definitely have a big sister/little sister dynamic. I take care of her, you know? I don’t talk to her about what I’m afraid of, or what scares me. I never told her I was in trouble at school. I keep up a strong front for her, and for my mom. And my boss, we’re really close, but he doesn’t know I’m questioning. I think he’d be supportive, but I haven’t told him.

“I’m never open, and honest, like that. It’s not my thing. I’m like, that girl at work that everyone is scared of. People have said, like, _Alex could be married with three kids and no one would ever know_. That’s who I am. But with Maggie…I don’t know. That’s not who I am.

“I feel like I’m finding myself, when I’m with her. And I…I don’t know. I like who I’m finding.”

* * *

Maggie is eating dinner with the guys. She’s just ended her third date with Alex, and they’d talked for two full hours before the producers had pulled them out of the pods.

They’re having a vaguely Mexican meal—bowls of rice, black beans, chicken, guacamole, and salsa. It’s okay, but what Maggie makes at home is much better.

“So,” Bradley asks, prompted by the producer standing just behind him. “How’s dating going for everyone?”

Matt talks for a long time about Olivia, who he hasn’t shut up about since day one, and then Bradley talks about Whitney and Jasmine for a while.

“I kind of dig Alex,” Duke says. Maggie’s head snaps up. “And she definitely digs me.”

“Yeah, Alex is very cool,” Matt agrees. “I mean, there’s nothing there for us, not like with Olivia,” Maggie rolls her eyes because this dude _will not_ shut up about Olivia, “but she’s fun to talk to. She’s smart.”

“She keeps asking me about surfing,” Duke brags. “I think she likes picturing me in my trunks.”

“She doesn’t know what you look like, dingus.”

It isn’t until a silence falls that Maggie realizes she’s said it out loud.

“What the fuck?”

“Something to share with the class, Maggie?” Jasper looks delighted, and Maggie shoots him a dirty look. He hates Duke—justifiably, because Duke fucking sucks and is definitely a homophobe—and clearly wants Maggie to take him down.

“I just mean, like, it’s not about your looks, you know. That’s kind of the whole point.”

Duke shakes his head. His ego is enormous, and unfortunately he’s pretty good looking. If you’re into that kind of thing, which Maggie most certainly is not.

“Whatever,” he says. “She’s into me.”

“Cool,” Maggie says, just trying to get out of this conversation. “Good for you.”

But Duke keeps going, talking just to Bradley now, who is just as much of a douche. “She definitely wants some of this man meat.”

And that’s just too far. It’s not that Maggie wants Alex, she tells herself as she tosses her napkin on the table and stands up. It’s that he’s objectifying women, and being gross.

“What?” He jeers at her. “Worried you don’t have anything to offer these girls?”

“Buddy,” she says, gathering up her silverware. “If your ‘man meat’ is the only thing you have to offer girls, then I have some bad fucking news for you about something called dildos, that women can use without becoming total fucking dicks.”

“Oh, shit!” Jasper says, gasping.

“Okay, calm down,” Matt tries, but Maggie talks over him, finishing this once and for all.

“Maybe you’ll end up with Alex, and maybe someone else will, and maybe no one will. But trust me. Any girl that goes home with you will be a hell of a lot less satisfied than any girl who goes home with me.”

“Oooh!”

“Holy shit, dude.”

“Damn, girl!”

Jasper pops into her bedroom to give her high five as she’s getting ready for bed.


	4. Love is Blind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> STAY AT HOME

**DAY 5: IS LOVE BLIND?**

“Can I ask you something?” Alex sounds nervous. Maggie is sitting on the ground, leaning against the couch. She’s tired of sitting in the same place for so long, and she likes being closer to Alex. It’s stupid, but she likes it.

“Anything.”

“Are you, um…how many people are you seriously talking to?”

Maggie swallows. The options scream through her head. If she says no one, that gives Alex too much power. She doesn’t want to give Alex even more power to hurt her than she already has. But she doesn’t want to lie. And, honestly, Alex is the only girl she feels like this about.

Alex is the only girl she’s felt like this about since Emily.

“I…um. I guess I don’t really know how to answer that.”

“Sorry, forget it.”

“No.” Maggie holds up a hand to stop her, and then shakes her head. Fucking blind dating totally sucks. “No, I mean, not forget it. Just…what…can you walk me through your thought process? Like, what exactly do you want to know?”

It’s an old tactic to buy time, but it works.

“Last night we were all talking, and one of suitemates, Tamara, I don’t think you’ve talked to her.”

“No.”

“Right, well, she’s cool. But she’s been talking to this one guy, Davis, and she really likes him, and he’s been saying really serious stuff to her. Like, about a future and stuff. But then she found out that another girl from our suite, Morgan is talking to him too. And he’s saying the same stuff to her. And Tamara was in my room crying, so upset, because she had thought that she and Davis were on an exclusive path, I guess. And I asked her, like, did you talk about that, and she said no, and I told her she should have, and then she looked at me and asked if I’d talked about that with anyone, and I…”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. So now I feel like a hypocrite, but also like I’m prying, and the whole point of this is to talk to a bunch of people, so forget I asked.”

“Alex.” Maggie should say nothing. She should change the subject. Move on. Keep her power. Keep herself safe. But instead she takes a drink of her scotch—even though it’s only two in the afternoon—and she says something incredibly stupid.

“I’m talking to a lot of people. I mean, there isn’t much to do otherwise, you know. But I’m…I’m only talking like this with you.”

It’s silent for a very long moment. And then Alex’s voice comes through, small and afraid but somehow still so fucking honest that it makes Maggie’s organs clench with wanting.

“I’m only talking like this with you, too.”

Alex can’t see her, so Maggie lets herself sag with relief. She beams up at the ceiling, trying not to cry. She drops her head into her hands and tries to pull herself together.

Alex could destroy her, but, fuck.

Maggie wants her so badly.

“Okay,” Maggie says softly, her head still in her hands. “I have to say I’m a little relieved, because Duke was bragging about you last night, and he’s a real tool.”

“Ew! What?” Alex sounds just as mad as Maggie could hope for. “What did he say?”

“Basically that you were into him.”

She can practically hear Alex rolling her eyes. “What an idiot. We talk about surfing. We spent like an hour on the pros and cons of different wetsuit thicknesses. I don’t know about him, but that’s not really my pillow talk of choice.”

Maggie snorts. “He’s a bit dense.”

“Understatement of the year. Water between the ears, honestly.”

“He, um…he was being kind of gross last night, and I sort of yelled at him.”

“Wait, what? What did he say? What happened?”

“It’s…it’s nothing.”

“Maggie Middle Name Sawyer, tell me this instant.”

Maggie can’t help but laugh. “He said, and I obviously quote because I would never say this, that you wanted his man meat.”

There’s a long pause, and then Alex says, her voice totally measured and calm, “Is it possible for a sentence to make you gayer?”

Maggie bursts out laughing.

“Because that makes me never want to even lay eyes on another man again, for as long as I live.”

Maggie wipes the tears from the corners of her eyes. “I think it’s very possible, yes.”

“What did you say?”

“Uhh…” She’s not really proud about how she made it a sex competition, so she doesn’t really want to tell. But Alex is insistent.

“Come on!”

“I basically told him that he was bad in bed, and that dildos are better than dicks anyway.”

There’s a really long pause, and Maggie worries that she’s ruined it. Alex is a bit too new for dildo conversation, probably.

“Too far?”

“No,” Alex says, but her voice is a little high and tight. “I just hadn’t, um…”

“Gotten to the ‘thinking about dildoes’ part of all of this?”

“Exactly.”

“Sorry for bringing it up.”

“No, no, it’s fine. And I mean, I know I can’t actually picture his face, but I like picturing him thinking about it for the first time, too.”

Maggie grins, glad it’s not ruining everything. “It was pretty amazing.”

“I hope that makes it to air. I want to see it.”

Maggie laughs again, and Alex hums, clearly considering something. “What?” Maggie asks.

“No, I was just trying to decide if it’s meaner to stop seeing him without explanation or keep stringing him along like I’m interested.”

Maggie tilts her head back and forth, thinking it through. “Probably meaner to string him along.”

“Okay cool. I’ll tell the producers I want to see him again tomorrow, then.”

Maggie chokes. “Alex!”

“What? He said the phrase ‘man meat’ to you, and then you had to say it to me. This is _justice_ , baby.”

And she’s just messing around, heartlessly mocking a total tool, but something inside Maggie lights up and sings at being called baby.

Fuck.

* * *

**DAY 6: IS LOVE BLIND?**

“Tell me about growing up.”

Alex is sitting on the floor right in front of the mottled glass. She could easily touch it from where she is. She’s so far forward that she can’t even lean on the couch. She’s just sitting with her legs crossed under her, staring at the glass like maybe today will be the day that it shatters under the force of her stare.

“Ouch,” Maggie says. “Going right for the jugular first thing in the morning, huh?”

Alex winces. “Sorry. You don’t have to.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m mostly joking.” Maggie lets out a loud breath. Alex lets one out too, like that will bring them physically closer. “Um, let’s see. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska. This absolutely tiny town called Blue Springs, population 500 or something.”

“Holy shit that’s small.”

“Yeah. It was just this tiny little farming town. Super conservative. Very Nebraska.”

“Did you like it there?”

Maggie laughs. “No.”

“Ah.”

“I mean, when I was super little, like five or whatever, sure. I mean, you don’t know anything about where you live, when you’re little. But pretty soon I figured out that I wasn’t white, and that wasn’t…that was rough.”

“Oh,” Alex says softly. “We haven’t talked about that. I know you grew up Catholic, but that’s all you’ve said.”

“Oh. Wow. And you haven’t seen me. This is a very weird way to date, isn’t it?”

Alex laughs.

“My parents are from Mexico.”

Alex nods. “Cool. I’m white; I guess I didn’t say either.”

“And Jewish.”

“One hundred memory points to you.”

“Thank you, I’ll use them to buy you a nice dinner when we get out of here.”

Alex stills for a second. They’ve never—not in all the hours in these pods over the last six days, talked about getting out. Talked out the outside world. Talked about maybe dating for real.

Maggie seems to notice and tries to diffuse. “Uh, what’s the exchange rate between memory points and dollars?”

Alex lets her deflect. “Like ten to one?”

“Okay, so I’ll take you to a very cheap dinner.”

Alex laughs.

“Um, but, yeah. So I’m Mexican, and Nebraska is super white, and very religious and very, um. I mean, it’s…honestly, it’s racist.”

Alex hums. “I’ve never been to Nebraska, but my sister has family in Kansas, and, yeah. Wow. _Super_ racist.”

Maggie lets out another big breath, like maybe she was nervous about talking race with a white girl. “Yeah. So that was tough from a young age. We were the only family in color in town. And then…” She sighs, and Alex can tell that she’s weighing options.

“It’s okay—” Alex starts, but Maggie interrupts her.

“No, it’s…I just don’t usually talk about this with people. I don’t like to tell people, but I…I don’t know.” She takes a breath. “You kind of make me feel like I want to?”

“I’m here for you, for anything,” Alex promises, as gently as she can. “I want to know everything about you, Maggie, but I don’t want you to feel pressured to tell me anything you don’t want to on camera.” Alex says it softly, right into the glass. “I’ll understand.”

But Maggie—brave, strong, compassionate, amazing Maggie—keeps going. “I realized I was gay when I was fourteen,” she says, and Alex presses her fingertips into the glass. “I liked a girl, and I was stupid. I…do you remember when I told you I knew what it was like to lie, all the time, to everyone?”

Alex nods before remembering that she needs to make sounds. “Of course I do.”

“Well, I got tired of it, like you did, except I was fourteen and stupid and living with my homophobic, religious, conservative parents.”

“Oh, Maggie.”

She can almost hear the grimace in Maggie’s voice. “Yeah. So I got tired of lying, and I told the truth. I told the girl that I liked her. And that was…that was sort of the end for me for a long time.”

Alex wipes a tear off her face, grateful that Maggie can’t see her crying. She doesn’t want to make this about her. “Oh no. Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

Maggie’s voice is a little choked. “It was…it was really bad, Alex. I grew up really fast, after that. I learned how to take care of myself, and I became really guarded.”

“Of course you did,” Alex breathes. “You did what you had to do to survive. You were a baby.”

“I don’t, um. I still don’t like to tell people things that are very…close to me, I guess.”

“I get that,” Alex says softly, pressing her fingertips against the glass. “Every truth is a bullet in their gun, and you never know when they’re going to point it at you and pull the trigger.”

“Exactly,” Maggie whispers. “Exactly.”

“You didn’t deserve that, Maggie. You don’t deserve that. You’re an amazing person. You deserve only good things.”

“No,” Maggie says quickly, and she’s sniffling, and Alex just wants to bash through this glass and hold her. “No, I don’t. I’ve done…I’m not just a victim. I’ve done…I’ve made mistakes. I’ve done things I regret. Bad things that I make me a bad person.”

“Me too,” Alex says quickly. “We all have. But I know for a fact that you’re a good person, Maggie. You have all this trauma around it, but when I came out to you, and totally ruined our first date, you put everything aside to make sure I was okay. That’s…you’re exceptionally kind, Maggie Sawyer. And if you’ve done stupid stuff in your past, out of fear, or anger, or hurt, or whatever? I mean, who hasn’t? I’ve done horrible things.”

“I cheated,” Maggie blurts out. “Just once. It was…we were together for a really long time, and I cheated.”

Alex swallows, very hard. She slowly and carefully slices through her chest and pulls out her biggest regret. “My sister is adopted—her whole family died when she was little and we took her in—and her biological aunt showed up a few years ago. She was a terrorist. She was threatening to kill millions of people, starting with National City, and she had the means to do it. Like, right away. We tried to stop her; we tried so hard. And my sister was so close to changing her mind, but her aunt’s husband kept turning her back to genocide.”

Alex drops her head into her hands. “No one else could take her out. We tried and tried but we couldn’t, and then I…I had the opening. She was kind to me because of my sister, and I just…” Alex lets out a shaky breath. “I had the shot, and I took it.”

She hears Maggie make a sound from across the glass. “Alex.”

“I killed her, with a knife. I held her in my arms while she bled out. She lived long enough to say goodbye to my sister, and then she died. And I’m the one who killed her. My sister lost her parents and everyone in her life, and all she had was this aunt, and I killed her.”

“Alex.”

Alex wipes her face with her sleeves, sniffling and wishing for tissues. She presses her forehead against the glass.

“I’ve hated myself for a lot of my life, but never more than for that night.”

“Alex.”

“I don’t care that you cheated, Maggie, or that you push people away sometimes. You’re a good person, and I know that because I’m not. And I understand if you don’t want to talk to me anymore, but I—”

“Alex.” Maggie’s voice is forceful and very, very close, like she’s right up against the glass too. “Sweetheart, you saved millions of people, and you did it in a way that hurt you so badly. You could have let everyone else die to save yourself this pain, to save your relationship with your sister, but you didn’t.”

“But Kara—” Alex chokes out, but Maggie stops her again.

“Is alive because of you,” she says firmly. “And so am I, and so is the rest of National City. Alex, you’re incredibly brave, and strong, and selfless, to have done that. And to have let your sister say goodbye. I’m…I want to talk to you even more now than I did before.”

Alex wipes her face again, knowing that Maggie can hear her crying. “I’m sorry,” she gasps. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”

“I’ve got you,” Maggie whispers, her mouth just on the other side of the glass. “I’ve got you, Alex.”

* * *

It’s not like Maggie can talk about it in a confessional or with anyone else, but holy shit.

Alex was talking about Myriad. She had to be. Nothing else happened in National City in the last few years, nothing like that. Nothing that could wipe out everything, everyone.

It was Myriad. It’s exactly right.

And the aunt was Alex’s sister’s biological relative, and Maggie is one of the very few people who know that the couple behind Myriad were Kryptonian.

Which means Alex’s sister is Kryptonian.

And there’s only one Kryptonian girl living in National City.

She’s the right age, and she’s adopted, and Alex talks about her sister like she’s perfect, like Alex could never compare. Doctor Doctor Special Agent Surfer Alex with the great laugh and the wonderful jokes, who cries with Maggie and calls her sweetheart.

The only person that perfect, impressive, terrifying Alex could possibly have an inferiority complex about is Supergirl.

Alex’s sister is Supergirl.

Alex killed a Kryptonian and that Kryptonian was Supergirl’s aunt and Alex’s sister is Supergirl.

Maggie is very quickly and very efficiently falling in love with Supergirl’s sister.

Maggie takes several shots in very quick succession, even though it’s ten in the morning. She sleeps through her date with Jane. She gets on the treadmill and sprints through her date with Maura. She can’t talk to anyone and she can’t even write it down. She’s in a panopticon and she’s cradling one of the two most explosive secrets on the planet in her hands.

She can’t tell Alex she knows without telling the producers, and she can’t get away from the producers.

Holy fucking shit.

* * *

“What do you want your life with a partner to look like?”

It’s her first time having two dates with Alex in the same day. It’s been almost twelve hours since their first. Since Myriad. Since Supergirl.

Maggie’s in sweatpants and an NCPD hoodie, sprawled on the couch. She’s drinking coconut water because shots of scotch at ten in the morning make for a very rough rest of the day.

“Now? In ten years? Thirty years?” Alex asks.

“I don’t know. Whenever. Like when you picture something and you’re like, _yes, that’s it, that’s what I want_ —what is it?”

Alex takes some time to consider. And to chew. Maggie can hear her snacking on something. Maybe popcorn?

“I want…I want to go to a baseball game and hold hands with someone, the whole time. I want to be standing next to someone and just turn and leave a little kiss on their shoulder. Not for any reason, just because we’re there together. I want to spend a rainy afternoon on a couch, in a nice big living room with lots of light. It’s raining, and we’re drinking tea, and we’re reading, or watching tv, or playing a game. And we have a dog, and my sister is coming over for dinner. But that afternoon, it’s just the two of us. And it’s quiet, and we’re together under a blanket. And tomorrow I’ll go to work and do something very cool and badass, but right then it’s just…still. Just us.”

Maggie lets out a big breath.

“Honestly it’s rude that there are so many couches here, but we can’t make that happen.”

Alex huffs out a laugh. “I know, right? I never thought I’d get sick of a couch, but here we are.”

“I wish we were on the same one,” Maggie admits, her heart in her throat.

“Me too,” Alex says, her voice a little hoarse. “Me too, a lot.”

“What about you? What do you want your life to look like?”

Maggie takes a deep breath.

Alex is the bravest person she’s ever met. Alex made her want to talk about her parents. Alex killed a Kryptonian in hand-to-hand combat. Alex is coming out on national television.

Maggie tries to be brave and loving, like Alex.

“I want to be in your life. I want to be under that blanket with you, and our dog, on that rainy day.”

Alex is completely, purely, utterly silent.

For a long, long time.

“Alex?”

“Are you…” Alex is sniffling now, and Maggie sits up, anxious and terribly afraid. “Are you saying that you like me?”

Maggie can’t help but laugh a little bit. “Yeah, Alex, I’m saying I like you. A lot. I like you a lot.”

And then Alex laughs, and it melts some of the fear sitting high and tight in Maggie’s chest.

“Thank god,” she says, and her voice is soft and kind and warm and terribly tender. “I like you so much, Maggie. I like you so much.”


	5. Will You Marry Me?

**DAY 7: WILL YOU MARRY ME?**

“Oh my god!” Olivia is running through the suite, screaming. Alex jumps out of her bedroom, brandishing a pen like a knife, ready to take down whatever threat appears. She’s just finished another amazing date with Maggie—they talked about movies and Maggie’s bonsai trees, and Kara, and Maggie’s college softball team, and how Alex has always wanted to try rock climbing.

It was easy and perfect and terrifying and after four hours the producers had dragged Alex out of the pod, kicking and screaming.

Olivia’s crying, but Tamara and Destiny are laughing and jumping up and down, so Alex quickly hides the pen behind her back like she isn’t in fact a highly trained sociopath.

“What?”

“Matt proposed!” Olivia gasps.

Oh. _Oh_.

“Oh! Uh, wow!”

Alex can’t stop thinking about the fact that it’s been seven days since Olivia and Matt met. In real life, after seven days, you’re lucky to have had a third date. Hell, in Alex’s life, you’re lucky to still be talking at all.

That’s _insane_. People shouldn’t get engaged unless they’ve been together for at least two years, and then planning a wedding usually takes one more. That’s a hard three year minimum. Although, of course, Alex’s longest relationship was counted in months, not years, but, still.

Seven days is ridiculous.

And they say gay people are ruining the institution of marriage. Honestly.

But Alex thinks about Kara watching the show—hopeless romantic Kara, who is constantly demanding that Alex be nicer and more compassionate to other people—so she plasters on a fake smile.

“Wow! Olivia, I’m so happy for you!” She lets herself get hugged, patting a jumping and sobbing Olivia on the back, and pretends like this isn’t the stupidest thing she’s ever heard.

* * *

Matt slides into the suite, grinning. He dressed up for his date with Olivia today, which Maggie had thought was super weird, because of course Olivia can’t see him, but he’s beaming so much that it clicks.

He proposed.

It’s been like, forty-five minutes since they met, but…sure.

“She said yes!” He booms, his smile huge and pure and joyful. “She said yes!”

The other guys congregate around him, cheering and patting him on the back. Todd and Jasper hug him, and he’s so happy that Maggie can’t help but smile.

But a few hours later, she stops by the room he shares with Todd and leans against the doorframe, her hands in her back pockets.

“Hey, congratulations again, dude.”

He’s still beaming. “Thanks, Mags. She’s so great. I’m so lucky.”

“Can I ask you something?”

He looks up from where he’s been shining his loafers. There’s literally nothing to do in this suite—no phones, no computers, no tv, no books. Everyone’s shoes are very shiny.

“Sure.”

Maggie adjusts her shoulders a little bit under her shirt. “I mean, I know you really like Olivia and everything, and that you liked her from the start, but like…it’s been seven days, man. How can you…how can you want to marry someone after seven days?”

He looks quickly at the two cameramen, one on each side, filming both of them simultaneously. “I think any relationship is about taking risks,” he says, and Maggie knows that she’s getting the Made for TV™ answer. “And yes, of course this is faster than it would be out in the world. But out in the world, on dates, you waste time with watching movies and ordering drinks and meaningless texting. This is all of the real conversations that would happen over months, all pushed together. After seven days, I know her better than I know people I’ve dated for months.”

Maggie shifts her hands to her front pockets. She doesn’t want to come off as a douche—she signed up for this fucking experiment too—but she has to say it.

“Yeah, but those movies and texts aren’t wasting time. They’re another way to get to know a person. To know what they’re really like, when they’re not forcing anything. To learn about natural chemistry, and what your real life will be. I mean, real long term relationships aren’t all serious, deep, introspective talks. So much of it is like, what should we make for dinner? Can you stop by the dry cleaners? Is the dishwasher clean or dirty?”

He looks into the cameras again, and then he shrugs. “I mean, my real answer, not my producer-approved answer, is, like, of course. Of course this is weird, and fake, and fast. But I have the rest of my life to be told to unload the dishwasher, you know? I don’t need to start with that. And yeah, I mean, of course I’m not _sure_.”

He shrugs a little, and Maggie feels something unclench a little bit. If Matt feels that way—Matt who has been more gung-ho about this than anyone—then maybe it’s okay that she does too.

He keeps going. “And I mean, of course when I’d pictured proposing to someone, I’d pictured doing it to someone who I’d been with for a long time. Who I would know would say yes, you know? Or at least, who I could reasonably expect to say yes. Not a…I mean Olivia’s not a stranger, obviously, but I didn’t know. I really genuinely didn’t know if she would say yes. And that’s…that’s not what I’ve always wanted. But…”

He shrugs, and he’s looking right at Maggie, and this clearly isn’t the Made for TV™ answer anymore. Maggie finds herself leaning forward, enraptured. She kind of gets what Olivia sees in him.

“But it was propose or walk away, and I’m sure as fuck not going to walk away from her. I mean I know it’s fast, but I think I do genuinely love her. I think you can fall in love with someone fast, and I did. I want her in my life. And that’s how this works, here. I want to see her. I want to spend time with her. So…” He shrugs again. “So I proposed. And she said yes. And tomorrow I’ll see her face, and that will be the beginning of the next thing for us.”

Maggie nods. “That makes total sense, yeah. Okay. That…that helps.”

Matt narrows his eyes at her. “Tell me something. You come back sometimes from a date and you’re…like, I don’t know. So happy. Like you’re talking to someone who just lights you up.”

Maggie bites her lip, trying not to grin. The very thought of Alex just makes her chest light on fire, but she’s trying to be cool, for fuck’s sake.

“Yeah, man!” Matt’s standing now, gesturing at her, excited and adorable. “That look! Right there! Who is that about? Who have you been talking to?”

She considers. She’s been very quiet about who she’s been seeing, because she doesn’t want to out anyone. And after the whole thing with Duke, she’s not that interested in getting into it with anyone who’s still talking to Alex.

But, fuck. It would be good to be able to talk to someone.

She checks over her shoulder to make sure no one else is around. The cameras will catch it, obviously, but by the time this conversations airs, Alex will have already outed herself in the earlier episodes.

“Um…” She bites her lip again, shoving her hands deeper into her front pockets. She knows that she’s grinning like an idiot. “It’s…Alex. I’ve been talking to Alex.”

Matt’s eyebrows fly up. “Holy shit! Wait, Alex?”

Maggie nods.

“Dude!” Matt gives her a high-five. “Alex is awesome!”

She gives up and lets her face do what it wants. “Yeah,” she says, and her voice is a little softer than she’d meant. “Alex is very awesome.”

“So then let me ask you something,” he says, a very older brother type look on his face, even though he’s definitely younger than her. “I know this whole thing is ridiculous, but ignore that. Ignore what proposing means. And just tell me this: are you ready to stop having Alex in your life?”

“No.” She says it before she thinks, but it’s true. “No,” she says again. “I’m not.”

“Well then, dude,” he says, really grinning now. “Then I think you know what you need to do.”

* * *

As she’s brushing her teeth, Matt pops his head into the bathroom.

“I can’t stop thinking about what Duke’s face will look when he finds out!” he snickers. “That dildo thing! Oh my god.”

Maggie chokes on her toothpaste.

* * *

Tamara, Alex, and Olivia all share a bedroom, but Olivia is out in the living room gushing to Whitney and Morgan about Matt, so it’s just Tamara and Alex getting ready for bed.

“What do you think about Olivia and Matt?”

Tamara smiles softly. “I’m so happy for her.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” But that’s not really what Alex wants to talk about. She turns quickly to the camera guy standing just behind her. “Hey, I’m gonna change clothes.”

He nods, quickly dropping the camera and leaving. She shuts the door behind him. There are still cameras mounted on the walls, of course, but they can’t air anything with nudity in it. Alex quickly strips off her shirt, and then sits down on her bed.

“Yeah, okay, but like…don’t you think it’s crazy? To get engaged after seven days? To even want to?”

Tamara, smart girl that she is, strips off her shirt too. She doesn’t know that Alex has been dating women as well as men, and Alex fervently hopes that she won’t be weird about it when she finds out later.

“Don’t think about it like that,” she says, and Alex tilts her head in confusion.

“Like what?”

“Like it’s actually getting engaged, the same way it would be in real life. Because obviously it’s not.”

Alex blinks. She’s a very smart person but she’s not following this at all. “What?”

“I mean, they’re calling it proposing, sure. And they’re calling it getting married, but that’s not what it is. At all. In the real world, after every date, you have a choice: do you want to go on another date, or are you done?”

Alex nods. It’s been a while, but she remembers the basic mechanics of it.

“But here, that choice looks different. Tomorrow is the end of the pods, right?”

Alex nods again.

“So, tomorrow, the choice is the same: do you want to go on another date, or are you done? But, because of the way they set it up, if your answer is yes—yes, you want another date—then you have to ‘get engaged.’” She uses air quotes and rolls her eyes, and Alex likes her so much.

“It’s the same decision as it always is. Do you want more, or are you done? They’re just calling it something different.”

“But it’s…they want you to get married in four weeks!”

Tamara waves her hand in the air like that doesn’t matter. “Sure, but that’s down the road. In the grand scheme of things, Olivia’s known Matt for one week. So three or four more weeks? That’s so much time. There’s so much time to make more decisions. But every morning of this experiment, just like every morning in your life, it’s the same basic question. Do I want more with this person, or am I done? They’re just calling it something different.”

She smiles then, like she knows something that Alex doesn’t. “Olivia wasn’t done. So she said yes.” She looks closely at Alex for a second, and it’s the first time Alex has felt naked.

“And whoever it is that you’re thinking about, whoever it is that you keep secretly dating—I mean, as long as it’s not Matt—then you have to ask yourself the same question. By the end of tomorrow, will you want more, or will you be done? And if you want more, than you’re going to have to say yes, or propose yourself.”

Alex chews on her lip. “It’s just so…”

“Stupid,” Tamara fills in. “It’s stupid. But…it’s where we are.”

* * *

Alex is in bed, listening to Olivia snoring. She hopes Matt doesn’t mind snoring.

This whole show is stupid. The idea behind it is absurd, and the timeline is the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard.

But her answer to Tamara’s question is obvious.

No, she’s not done.

Yes, she wants more with Maggie.

Yes to more time, and yes to seeing her, and yes to touching her, and yes to waking up with her.

* * *

**DAY 8: WILL YOU MARRY ME?**

“So, a guy in my suite got engaged yesterday.” Maggie is sitting on the couch, her legs crossed under her, anxiously picking at a pillow in her lap. She’s staring at the mottled glass, hard, wishing she could just walk through it and have a real, private, honest conversation with the person on the other side.

“Oh, really? So did a girl in my suite.” Alex’s voice is, like always, this amazing combination of strong and soft. Maggie wants to pour it into a cup and drink it every morning.

“Oh yeah? Is it Olivia?”

“Yeah! So yours must be Matt.”

“Bingo.”

“He’s really nice. I’m happy for her.”

“Oh yeah, he said you guys have talked. He likes you. I mean—wait, not like that.” Alex laughs and Maggie’s glad Alex can’t see her blush. “He just says nice things about you, that’s all.”

“Aww, Sawyer, you talking about me?” Alex teases, obviously smiling.

Maggie has an overwhelming urge to kiss the smirk off her face.

“I, uh…no, actually. I haven’t been. At all.”

“Oh.” Alex sounds disappointed, and something furiously protective surges up inside Maggie.

“No, Alex, I mean…I’ve wanted to talk about you. So much. And I did last night, to Matt, but I’ve…” She takes a breath. This is kind of awkward and would certainly be better done in person. “I didn’t want to out you to anybody. I didn’t know what you wanted, or what you’ve told people.”

“Oh,” Alex says softly, and that’s all she says for a long minute. Maggie’s palms start to sweat. She pulls an entire thread out of the pillow.

And then it get worse. She hears what sounds like little sniffles, like Alex is trying to hold them.

“Alex—”

But Alex stops her. “No, I’m okay. I’m just…god. You’re so…” Maggie’s heart clenches. _Controlling. Self-absorbed. Consumed with a hero complex. Obsessed with being gay. Naïve. Hard-headed. Insensitive_.

“You’re so good to me,” Alex breathes, and the tension leaves Maggie’s lungs like air escaping from a punctured balloon. Her chest shakes with the force of it, and she can feel her eyes starting to water.

“You’re the most thoughtful, considerate, perfect person I’ve ever met.”

“No,” Maggie tries, desperately grasping onto her composure. “I’m not, I’m---”

“Do not,” Alex interrupts, her voice hard, “make me smash through this wall like the Kool-Aid man to beat you into accepting this complimentary truth.” Maggie barks out a surprised laugh.

“Seriously, Maggie. That’s…I can’t even find words for it. But I just…I don’t know. Do you remember, on like our second date, we said that we’re both used to taking care of ourselves?”

Maggie hums.

“No one has ever tried to take care of me like this. Like you do. And I just…I want you to know that I see it, okay?”

“Okay,” Maggie whispers, her voice a little hoarse.

“And I’m going to take care of you, too. This is not like a one-sided damsel situation.”

Maggie laughs again. “A two-sided damsel?”

“Yeah but only if both damsels are actually lady dragons.”

Maggie grins up the ceiling, letting her tears soak back into her eyes. “Oh, fuck yes.”

Alex then goes on a tangent about the book _Dealing with Dragons_ , which Maggie has never read, but was one of Alex’s favorites as a kid. She walks Maggie through the entire plot, which seems to involve a princess who definitely doesn’t want to get married, a lady dragon who wants to be king, and lots of cherries jubilee.

“You know, in retrospect…that book seems _super_ gay,” Alex muses, and Maggie chokes.

Matt had said, are you ready to stop having Alex in your life? And sitting here on this unremarkable couch, holding a pillow that’s seen better days, laughing up the ceiling and staring as hard as she can into the slice of mottled blue glass separating them, Maggie knows her answer.

No, she’s not ready to stop being with Alex. She’s not even close.

* * *

“I know we have to go soon,” she says, her heart up in her throat. “But I want…we didn’t really talk about Matt and Olivia.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. We got sidetracked.” Alex is clearly grinning and Maggie wants to see her.

“Yeah.”

“By your kindness and general aura of awesomeness.”

“Oh my god, shut up.”

But then Alex says, “Make me,” and, _fuck_.

This has been mostly about feelings—about yearning and staring at the wall and wanting to leave soft kisses on the top of Alex’s head, but…fuck.

All Alex has to do is say _make me_ , and suddenly Maggie’s falling apart at the seams. She doesn’t know what Alex looks like, but she knows that she’s desperate to fuck her. Or make love to her. Or both. And everything in between.

“Okay, sorry,” Alex says from the other side of the wall, completely oblivious to the tidal wave of lust sweeping through the other pod. “I’ll behave.”

And _that_ doesn’t help.

“What did you want to say about Olivia and Matt?”

Maggie clears her throat, trying to reign in her libido. It’s been a while, though, so it takes a minute.

“I uh…right. I just…I guess I wanted to hear what you thought. About the whole, engagement thing.”

“Engagement after seven days thing, you mean?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

Alex is silent for a moment, which makes Maggie a bit nervous. She pulls at the thread on the pillow again, watching it unravel before her eyes.

“I don’t know how to say this in a way that won’t get the producers jumping in here and writing me a script,” Alex finally offers, and Maggie laughs. “I know what they want me to say, right? All love is a risk, these emotional connections are so strong, no one else would understand, this is the realest love in the world, blah blah blah.”

Maggie snickers. That’s exactly what everyone said last season, and exactly what the producers have been feeding her for eight days now.

“But, I mean…my real answer is…this is stupid. It’s all stupid. The idea that you can be sure in seven or eight days, and then be sure enough to get married in like a month…it’s ridiculous. It’s not real.”

Maggie hums again, trying not to get upset.

It’s not like Alex will disappear off the face of the earth after this. Maggie will surely be able to look her up—how many women named Alex Danvers work for the FBI and are Supergirl’s sister—and maybe take her out on a real date, after this rejection is over with.

But then Alex says something. “But last night I was talking to my suitemate, Tamara, and she said…she said that the question isn’t about getting engaged, but it’s about if you want to keep seeing this person, or if you’re done. If Olivia wanted to keep seeing Matt, or not. And she did, so she said yes. She said not to think of it like an engagement, but like saying yes to another date. And I…I don’t know.”

Maggie wonders if Alex is the type of person to shrug her shoulders, or wave a hand in the air, or blow air through her lips.

“I get that. I get wanting more. And if that’s the form it has to take…I get it.”

Maggie’s about to respond—to talk about Matt, to say she isn’t ready to be done.

To ask Alex to keep going, with her. Together.

But the door to her pod opens then, and Jenna the producer steps in. “Time’s up,” she says, and her voice is hard.

“No, wait, please. I need a few more minutes,” Maggie begs, but Jenna’s shaking her head.

“Alex,” Maggie says quickly, turning back to face the mottled glass. “Alex, hold on—”

But Alex doesn’t say anything. “We cut the mics,” Jenna tells her, bored. “That’s not the type of conversation we want the two of you to be having.”

Maggie’s furious. “Jenna, come on. Come on.”

Jenna shakes her head. “If you want to propose, we’ll give you another date tonight. But we’re not going to let you sit in here, making deals with each other about a different meaning for the proposal. No way.”

“Jenna—”

“Nope. You’ll have ten minutes tonight to propose, or to say goodbye. After that, the mics are cut, and if you try to find Alex out in the city before the show airs, you’ll be in violation of your NDA, and we’ll sue you. I mean it, Maggie.”

“That’s not fair.”

“That’s what you signed up for. You have until eight tonight to make your decision. Propose or say goodbye.” She leans in, and she’s always seemed nice but right now she’s terrifying. A network executive from top to bottom who actually doesn’t give a shit about any of them. “And if you do propose, you’d better make it fucking look good, Maggie Sawyer, or so help me god, I’ll write you a script that you’ll hate, and I’ll make you film it over and over again until I’m satisfied. Got it?”

Maggie nods, mutely. Jenna absolutely, completely has the ability to do that. They can write anything, and Maggie has to say it. That’s in the contract she signed.

* * *

Alex is still giving the producer, Chad, a piece of her mind as he escorts her back to her suite. He’s threatening her with all kinds of things—lawsuits, more NDAs, the full power of the Netflix legal machine descending on her—but she just wants to get back to Maggie.

She just wants to ask Maggie to keep going. Not to give up on her.

This show is stupid and it’s controlled and scripted and edited and stupid, but Alex isn’t anywhere near ready to say goodbye to Maggie.

* * *

Jenna gives her until eight to make her decision, but Maggie already knows what it is.

She’s not done with Alex.


	6. Will You Marry Me?

**DAY 8: WILL YOU MARRY ME?**

By seven-thirty, Alex’s suitcase is packed. They all had to pack tonight, engaged or not. The pods are over. It’s the end of day eight, and today was win-or-go-home. Tomorrow morning the people who are engaged will see each other for the first time, and then they’ll all leave the suites. The engaged people will be flown to Mexico for a weird pre-wedding honeymoon thing, and the rest will go home.

Olivia isn’t the only one in the suite who’s engaged. Whitney said yes to Maxwell this afternoon (barf), and Morgan said yes to Davis, the asshole who had been stringing Tamara along too. Tamara was upset, but confided to Alex that she was pretty sure he was a two-timing douche anyway, so Morgan was welcome to him.

Destiny hadn’t found anyone she really liked, and Alex had been hauled out of her last date with Maggie before anything could be resolved. So Alex, Destiny, and Tamara are packing to go home, and the other three are laying out their best outfits for their first look at the men they’ve chosen.

Tamara, Destiny, and Alex have a date with several bottles of alcohol, and they’re in negotiations to get production to order them a pizza. Alex is in her pajama bottoms already, the white ones with the little squares that she stole from Kara, and a dark blue Henley. The front of her hair is clipped back with a bobby pin, the way she gets it out of her eyes when she needs to wash her face or look in a microscope.

But just before she can start drinking, Chad comes into her room. “Alex,” he says, not even looking up from his phone, “Come with me.”

“Why?”

He rolls his eyes and Tamara laughs. Alex has always been a bit ornery, but she’s stopped pulling her punches now that she’s almost done. She had threatened a poor PA with disembowelment if he didn’t order them a pizza, not seven minutes ago.

“Just come,” he says.

Alex looks over at Tamara who shrugs. She puts down her toiletry bag and follows Chad out of the bedroom, shrugging at all the girls as she passes them.

But it isn’t until Chad guides her out of the suite that Alex starts worrying that something’s wrong. He must be taking her to the production office, which means she’s in serious trouble. Good thing she’s pretty protected by the DEO from any possible legal trouble.

But he doesn’t take her to the production office. He leads her down the halls that she knows by heart, and stops in front of a pod.

“What’s going on? Dates ended this afternoon.”

But he doesn’t say anything, just opens the door and gestures for her to walk in.

“Chad, seriously,” but he shakes his head.

“You have ten minutes,” he says while texting. The instant she crosses the threshold, he shuts the door in her face, leaving her alone in the pod.

She’s fuming. “Fucking asshole.”

“You don’t mean me, I hope.”

Alex whirls around, staring daggers at the mottled blue glass.

It can’t be.

The producers pulled the plug this afternoon. It can’t be.

“Alex?”

It is.

“Maggie?” Alex gasps.

“Hey.”

“What…” Alex opens and closes her mouth like a goldfish. She’s still standing but she crosses the pod in a few short steps, coming to stand right up against the glass. “I thought they weren’t going to let us see each other again.”

Maggie makes a little sound. “No, they…we only have a few minutes, though.”

Alex nods, forgetting to say anything.

She raises her hands and presses them both against the glass. It’s cold and bubbly under her skin.

“Can you see me?” She whispers, bowing her head down. “I’m touching the glass. Can you see me?”

There are sounds, like Maggie’s moving. “No,” she says, her voice soft and tender. “But I’m touching it too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I feel like an idiot, but, uh…what’s new, I guess.”

Alex huffs out a laugh, not sure if she wants to cry or not.

“I was scared,” Alex hears herself confess.

“Of what?”

“Of not getting to talk to you again. I just…I wanted to finish what we started, earlier. I wanted to hear your voice again.”

Maggie sounds like she’s smiling. “Me too.”

Alex takes a moment, just breathing, picturing Maggie on the other side of the glass. She’s said she’s small for a cop, and Alex has heard her cursing at her hair, so it must be long. She probably has dark hair and dark eyes, and her skin is probably darker than Alex’s.

She probably has a beautiful smile and strong, nimble hands.

She’s smart, and she’s tough, and breathing, just there. Just on the other side of this stupid, hideous, 1990’s piece of glass.

“Alex,” she says, soft and hoarse and hesitant. “Alex, I know this isn’t what you expected from being here. Or from your life. I know…I know that liking women has been really scary for you, and that you’re just starting to explore it. And I know that we’ve only known each other for eight days, but I…”

Alex can hear her swallow.

Alex can’t breathe.

She presses her hands into the glass, wishing that she had Kara’s powers and could just step through, shaking the shards harmlessly from her hair before taking Maggie in her hands.

“I don’t know what you want, Alex, but I know what I want.”

Alex rests her forehead on the glass. It’s cold and hard and it grounds her against the tears forming under her eyelashes.

“I want to see you, Alex. I want to be able to reach out my hand and touch you. Hold your hand, and tuck your hair back behind your ear, and kiss you on the shoulder, just because.”

A sound escapes Alex’s lips, something between a gasp and sob.

“I want to spend time with you. Real time. On the same couch, even.”

Alex laughs a little, wet and tight.

“I want to go on real dates with you, out in the world. I want to take you to my favorite restaurant, and go to yours. I want to go for rides on our bikes together. I want to be a team at your sister’s game night and cheat at Battleship together.”

Alex laughs again, each word filling up a place in her body that she’d never realized was empty.

“I want to meet your family, and make a chosen family together. I want to stand up in front of everyone at Thanksgiving and say that I’m thankful for you. I want to adopt a dog with you, and take it for runs. I want to stand next to you in the dog park, holding your hand. I want to bring you coffee when you’re working late. I want to go to the gun range with you and settle our bet about who’s the better shot once and for all.”

“You’re going down, Sawyer,” Alex gasps, finally reaching up to wipe her tears. “You have no idea.”

Maggie laughs, and she’s obviously crying too, and Alex wishes the rooms weren’t on a sound system because she wants to know if Maggie actually sounds closer of if she’s just imagining it.

“I want to kiss you, Alex. I want to wake up with you. I want to fight crime side by side and then collapse in bed together. I want…I want a life with you, Alex.”

Alex shudders, her body unfathomably full. Ready to burst.

“So I have a question for you, Alex. And it means, do you want those things with me, too? Do you want that life with me, too? When you think about that baseball game, and that dog, and that couch, on that rainy day—that person with you…could that person be me?”

Something huge and wet wrenches itself out of Alex’s chest. “Yes,” she gasps. “Yes.”

“Wait,” Maggie says, but she’s laughing. “Wait, let me say it.”

“Okay,” Alex stands straight up, leaving just one hand on the glass. She wipes at her face with the other, smearing the sleeve of her Henley with her tears. “Okay.”

“Alex Danvers, doctor of many things, special agent, sister, surfer. Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy. The most interesting person I’ve ever met.” Maggie takes a big, deep breath, and Alex steadies herself.

She wants more with Maggie. She’s not ready to say goodbye.

“Will you marry me?”

It’s so stupid, but she’s not anywhere near done.

“Yes,” she whispers into the glass. “Yes. Please.”


	7. First Night Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. Feel free to skip this if you don't want to read about my emotions.
> 
> This is a fucking terrifying time. I'm on day 9 of social distancing. As some of you know, I have MS, which is a disease where my immune system eats my brain and spine instead of / in addition to eating infections. The treatment is to wipe out my immune system. And if I get sick and my immune system activates, it can eat my brain more than usual. So you can probably imagine that I'm very at risk and very afraid right now.
> 
> I started writing this because Alethea sent me a headcanon about it and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I spent all last weekend writing it instead of working on my books. And I started posting it because I really liked it and wanted to share it with you all. I promised daily updates because it was mostly written and I could. I figured most of us could use a ridiculous AU right about now.
> 
> But I had no idea what the response was going to be. I have been floored by your comments, tweets, and screeches about this. My phone has been blowing up and I'm just...I'm so grateful to you. Every time I check my email or my twitter notifications, every time I respond to your comments and gifs, my heart feels full, and I feel a little less afraid of the world outside.
> 
> This experience--your support, encouragement, and love--has reminded me of what a lovely community we have here, and that while the world is objectively terrifying and terrible right now, we can create some small good for each other. And I'm so incredibly grateful for each and every one of you.
> 
> I'm still working full-time from home, but I'm trying to be more present on tumblr and twitter, so please feel free to come chat with me any time. I hope we can keep being here for each other, especially for those who still have to go out to work in the scary world, or those who are losing their jobs.
> 
> (And, of course, please fucking stay home if you can)
> 
> Mostly I'm just...I'm overcome with love and affection for each and every one of you. Lots of you have been thanking me for bringing some light into your days, and it's important to me that you know that it's mutual.
> 
> Love you, awesome nerds. Now please enjoy two gay disasters meeting face to face.

**DAY 9: FIRST NIGHT TOGETHER**

Alex is always in charge of what Kara wears on dates, but that’s easy. Kara’s cute, and men always love her. She’s friendly. She smiles. She’s blonde. She’s easy.

It’s been years since she’s gotten dressed for a date herself, and she’s never, not once in her life, had this much pressure about a stupid fucking dress.

She didn’t go to her prom because of the whole everyone-hates-me-for-solving-a-murder thing, and she hadn’t gone to anything formal in college. And the DEO has made her much more focused on black spandex and thigh holsters than curling irons and pumps.

But right now she’s sorting through all of the clothes she brought with her to the show, wishing desperately for Kara.

What the fuck does one wear to meet their extremely female _fiancé_ for the first time?

What do lesbians like?

What do women who like women look like?

Should she be wearing, like, cargo shorts or something? Maybe a toolbelt? A vest? Is her hair too simple? Does she look too straight? Is she too boring, too predictable, too unfriendly?

She’s ready to throw up, but then Destiny, Tamara, and Olivia come in. They’re all looking at her with a bit of fear in their eyes, like she’s a feral animal.

“Alex,” Destiny says slowly, like she’s trying not to spook her. “Whatcha doing?”

Alex reaches deep into her suitcase, grunting with effort and hoping for a Mary Poppins miracle.

“Alex, Alex.” Tamara bravely reaches out and pulls Alex free. “Stop for a second. Talk to us.”

Olivia looks around at the clothes covering every surface of their room. Clothes that had been perfectly packed just an hour ago.

She’s not a detective like Maggie, but she seems to put two and two together. “Alex, is there something you’d like to share with the class?”

Alex lets out a huge breath and sags onto the bed.

“I don’t know what to wear,” she admits, dropping her head into her hands.

The three roll their eyes. “Yeah, tornado Alexandra made that pretty clear,” Tamara says.

It’s Olivia who says it, sitting down next to Alex on the bed. “Are you going to be meeting someone this morning?”

Alex nods, still folded in on herself.

Olivia squeals, but keeps it together.

“Holy shit.”

“Damn girl! Why the fuck were you keeping this a secret! You’re…fuck. You’re fucking terrifying.”

Alex looks up at that, laughing a little despite herself.

“I didn’t mean to hide it,” she says. “I just…”

But it’s Destiny whose mouth twitches a little bit. “What’s her name?” she asks softly, and all three heads snap over to her.

“What?” Destiny holds up her hands in submission. “It being a girl is the only thing that makes any sense.”

Tamara leans back against a dresser behind her. “Wait, is that true? Have you been dating girls too?”

Alex swallows hard and then, slowly, nods.

But Tamara doesn’t freak out, not like that total bitch from the first season. She just says, “Cool.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Olivia’s voice is soft, like Alex is a sick child or something.

“I um…” Alex rubs at her forehead. “I’ve never…it was my first time.”

“With a girl?”

Alex nods.

“And you’re meeting her this morning?”

She nods again.

“Which means you’re engaged to her?”

She drops her head back in her hands, groaning. “I guess.”

Destiny whistles. “Damn. I mean, I know lesbians move fast, but that’s a whole other speed altogether.”

They all laugh.

“How are you doing?” Tamara asks, and Alex just shrugs.

“I don’t…I don’t know. I mean she’s…god. I like her _so_ much, you know?”

Olivia beams at her, nodding. “Yeah, I do.”

“But I’m…” Alex stands up, tossing piles of clothes up in the air. “What the fuck do lesbians wear?”

The others laugh, but she’s being serious.

“You guys, I mean it! I didn’t bring any doc martins!”

* * *

Maggie’s the kind of person who’s more comfortable in pants than a dress, nine times out of ten. She’s comfortable in her presentation. She likes dressing more androgynous—she likes being a woman, but she’s not femmey.

She brought a suit, just in case, but something about today makes her want to wear a dress. She’s not sure what it is.

She doesn’t know what Alex will want, or will like. Being only on her ninth day of dating women, she hopefully doesn’t have a huge butch or femme preference, but the uncertainty of it is making Maggie nervous.

But something about today, about getting ready to walk down a long hallway and see Alex—finally see Alex—makes her pick out her black dress instead of her suit.

It’s flattering on her for sure. Her best friend had screamed when she’d walked out of the dressing room in it, so that was a good sign. It’s sleeveless, reaching down just below her knees. It’s tight all the way down, hiding nothing. It’s got a high neck—no cleavage—but the sides of the dress are held together with just black ties, from hips to armpits.

She’s laced it tighter in the past, but this morning she leaves it pretty open. There are a few inches of skin clearly showing through, and she has to close her eyes and breathe carefully to get herself through picturing Alex skimming her hands up Maggie’s sides, her soft palms brushing against the tender skin on Maggie’s ribs.

She puts half her hair up in a bun, and carefully curls the rest, letting it cascade down her back. She does her makeup, just like her best friend taught her. She wears black studs in her ears and red lipstick. Her highest strappy black heels—the ones that give her the enormous blisters—complete the look.

Jasper gasps and fans himself when he sees her, so that’s good. Matt gives her a hug and a high-five. Duke’s eyes bug out, and she lets that straighten her spine.

God, she hopes this works.

She doesn’t really pray anymore, but she offers up her hopes as she walks behind Chad. _Please_ , she offers. Ple _ase let Alex like what she sees. Please let her really be into girls. Please let her really be into me_.

_And please_ , she offers as an afterthought, waiting for the lighting techs to finish their work, _let me be really into her, too_.

The wait is interminable. Setting up the lights and cameras and microphones takes forever. The stylists swarm her, touching up her face and hair more times than she can count. She’s antsy and sweaty under the lights, and she just wants to get this over with.

She does manage to bum a breath mint from a PA though, so that’s good.

Finally, finally, after at least an hour of waiting—her feet killing her in these stupid shoes—they tell her it’s go time.

Her stomach contracts and her ribs suddenly feel too small for her body. Her heart swells and tightens with every breath, making her dizzy. The stylists flock to her for final touch ups, even though she hasn’t moved since the last ones.

“Breathe,” one whispers. “She looks great. So do you. Just breathe.”

They all clear out of the way, out of all the possible shots, and then, on a count of three, the floodlights behind Maggie turn on, silhouetting her on the frosted glass doors in front of her. This fucking show and its obsession with opaque glass, honestly.

There’s a very long pause, clearly for the drama of it, and then finally, finally, the doors in front of Maggie whoosh open. She’s standing in a circular doorway, with a long red carpet in front of her. At the other end of the carpet is another set of opaque circular glass doors, and they’re opening.

And behind them is the most beautiful girl that Maggie’s ever seen.

She stands there for a second, blinking.

Maggie takes it all in from one breath to the next.

Her blue dress, with the black details on the chest and the—holy god—cut out just below her sternum, showing a triangle of perfect, creamy skin. The long legs, bare from the knees down. Her own strappy black heels, terrifying and impressive. The soft reddish brown curls in the hair cut to her chin, somewhere between sweet and serious.

Her figure, shown off beautifully by the dress. She’s gorgeous. Slim but curvy, as perfect from the front as a person can possibly be.

Her arms and shoulders are bare, and the dress dips down just enough in the front to tease the hollow of her throat and the top of her chest.

But mostly what Maggie takes in is her face.

She is truly, impossibly, absolutely breathtaking. Dark eyes, pink lips, pale skin. Cheekbones and jawline and eyes and—fuck.

She is, easily, one of the prettiest people Maggie’s ever met. She’s gorgeous.

But that’s the least of it.

The real thing that’s slamming into Maggie with the force of a mac truck is that this person—this exquisite, incredible person—is _Alex_. And she’s looking at Maggie like she wants her.

With her second breath, Maggie starts walking down the carpet.

Alex does too, slowly. She dips her head down a few times, bashful under Maggie’s heated gaze, but each time she looks back up she’s smiling more than before.

On her fifth breath, they meet in the middle.

“Hi,” Maggie whispers, and Alex grins.

“Hi.”

“Wow,” Maggie manages to say with her fifth breath. “This is…you’re…” She shakes her head, not able to finish a thought before another comes screaming in.

Alex laughs, and _fuck_.

“I know. You’re, with the…” She waves her hand up and down, aimless and surprisingly dorky, and Maggie’s body throbs for her.

And then it’s Alex—who has been out for nine days and never touched a girl romantically before, who reaches out first. She stops flapping and gently tucks a strand of Maggie’s hair back behind her ear, and Maggie wants to close her eyes and purr with the pleasure of it.

“You’re beautiful,” Alex whispers, and Maggie’s heart slams up against the inside of her chest, desperately trying to reach out to Alex. “You have _dimples_.”

Maggie laughs. “You’re…god. Unreal.”

Alex laughs again, but Maggie shakes her head. “You’re gorgeous, Alex. I couldn’t…not in my wildest dreams, you know?”

She’s not making sense, but Alex is nodding.

“Tell me about it,” she murmurs, and that’s the last straw.

Maggie slowly, with care and gentleness and no small amount of fear, reaches up. She cups Alex’s face in her hands, careful of her makeup, and brushes her thumbs across Alex’s cheeks.

“Hi,” she says again.

Alex smiles, and Maggie can’t wait.

“Can I, please—”

And Alex is nodding yes before she can say it, and Maggie is kissing her before she can stop nodding.

Alex takes a second, still and something like surprised against Maggie. But then Maggie feels a soft hand on her arm, and Alex’s lips melt open under hers.

Maggie can’t help but go deeper. She holds onto Alex’s face for dear life, gently rubbing her thumb against Alex’s cheek, and slowly moving against her. Alex is soft and wet under her lips, giving and grasping. Her hand is tight on Maggie’s bicep, and her other floats up to Maggie’s hip.

And then that hand slides just a bit up and grazes Maggie’s bare skin, and they both pull back, surprised. Alex hisses out a breath, her eyes still closed.

“Holy,” she whispers. “Holy god, Maggie.”

Maggie laughs, deep and rich, and Alex finally opens her eyes.

“You okay?” Maggie asks, reluctantly sliding her hands from Alex’s face and clasping them together, right up between their chests.

Alex reaches up, gently touching Maggie’s hair again. She’s looking directly into Maggie’s eyes, and _fuck_. She’s the most beautiful woman Maggie’s ever seen.

She’s smiling like she’ll never stop, and she’s leaning back in already.

“I’m so much better than okay,” she mumbles. “So much.”

Maggie grins back her, and Alex kisses into her smile.

“Wait,” Alex says, after another long moment of soft kisses. Her hands are on Maggie’s face now, and Maggie’s are on her arms, keeping her close in.

Maggie blinks her eyes open, ready to pull back. _Too fast_ , she thinks. _Bad Maggie. Too fast with the baby gay_.

But Alex is just looking at her with a sort of doofy expression, somewhere between goofing off and totally smitten. “So, you, uh…you like me, huh? Cause that’s what I’m getting from this.”

Maggie rolls her eyes, and Alex laughs.

“I do,” she says, trying to show that she’s serious even though she can’t stop smiling. “I really do.”

Alex grins at her, reaching one hand down to intentionally run over the exposed skin on Maggie’s waist, making Maggie shudder under her. “Good,” she murmurs into Maggie’s mouth. “I really like you too.”

The producers call time after some amount of minutes. Maybe one or two, not more than three. They slowly pull apart, and Alex looks ready to murder Chad.

Maggie is really fucking into her.

“I’ll see you soon,” Maggie says, hoping Alex doesn’t get arrested for homicide before they can go on a real date.

Alex softs, nearly melting. “Yeah,” she says. “You’d fucking better, Sawyer.”

Maggie holds out a pinky. “Pinky swear,” she says.

Alex takes the pinky with her own, bringing both their hands up to her mouth so she can leave a kiss on them.

“Bye, Alex.”

Alex drops her forehead onto Maggie’s, just for a second. “Bye, pretty girl.”

Chad clears his throat and they pull apart. Maggie—more reluctantly than ever in her life—starts walking backwards down the hallway, towards her side of the doors.

Alex does the same until she nearly wipes out, wobbling on one of her heels. She giggles and Maggie laughs out loud. “Don’t hurt yourself, Danvers,” she calls.

Alex waves her pinky in the air, like a dork. “Pinky swear,” she says, and Maggie’s heart is a battering ram inside her chest.

Alex turns and walks towards her door, and, holy shit.

Hate to see her leave but love to watch her go.


	8. First Night Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Upped the chapter count because I'm, well, me

**DAY 9: FIRST NIGHT TOGETHER**

Last season it was a big surprise to the couples that they weren’t alone together for their romantic vacation in Mexico. It had been a great reveal when, on their second day at the resort, all the other couples had shown up. It was great television. But they can’t exactly pull that same trick again.

This year, they all fly down to Mexico separately, still only allowed to see and talk to the people from their original suites. They fly coach, because it won’t be aired, and Alex is pretty sure they’re on different flights. Alex hasn’t seen Maggie since those few minutes in that red carpeted hallway.

Which, fuck. What a few minutes they had been.

Maggie had been smaller than she’d expected. She’d said she was short, but Alex had only ever had her arms around a man like that before, and she hadn’t been prepared for Maggie’s absolutely tiny body. Her presence and personality loomed so big in the pods, and Alex still sort of can’t believe how small the package is.

She had been absolutely, completely, utterly fucking gorgeous. The dress, and the hair, and just…jesus. Everything. And those fucking _dimples_ , god. They should be illegal.

Kissing her had been like nothing Alex had ever felt in her life. Better than her first kiss, better than her first time having sex, better than making out with her favorite ex-boyfriend. It had been like getting a perfect score at the gun range, like beating J’onn in the training room, like throwing a knife right on target.

Maggie was… _fuck_ , you know?

Alex is desperate to see her again. To kiss her again. To learn what she smells like and what her hands feel like on the rest of Alex’s body. To feel her laugh in her chest, and kiss her smile.

It’s been more than twelve hours and Alex worries that she’s in legit withdrawal.

It isn’t until they step out of the airport shuttle and walk into the resort courtyard that they can catch sight of everyone. They’re supposed to stand in a big half circle, not near their fiancé.

Alex looks across the circle at Maggie, who is beaming back at her. Just as fucking gorgeous as in the hallway, but more real this time. Less made up, clearly tired after a flight. Fucking beautiful. Alex’s body is already keening, wanting to reach out to touch her. Maggie’s wearing jean shorts and a white t-shirt, and Alex hopes she’s not drooling on camera.

She’s liked girls for a while now, but if other girls had looked like Maggie Middle Name Sawyer, she’d have been out of the closet for years now.

Alex finally lets her eyes dart around the circle. There are six men and ten women total, which means there must be at least one other couple of two women. She knows that Maxwell, Matt, and Duke must be here, as well as Morgan’s Davis, who Alex only had one date with. She has no idea who the rest are. She tries to guess which must be which—Duke is probably the one who looks like he lives at the gym. Maxwell is probably the one who looks like all of this is beneath him.

Alex just wants to get this over with. She just wants to get her hands on Maggie again.

* * *

Nick and Vanessa call their names, one at a time. They’re supposed to step forward and face the group, and wait for their partner’s name to be announced. It’s going to be long and dramatic and probably filmed several times for all the right angles.

Maggie counts twelve of them in all, so they’re going with eight couples, two more than last season.

“Matt,” Nick calls up, and he quickly walks towards the front, beaming.

“And Matt’s fiancé, Olivia,” Vanessa says. Olivia steps forward and takes his hand, grinning at everyone. She’s cute—Latina and short and smiling and very pretty. Everyone here is very pretty. Maggie’s not sure what the point of a blind love experiment is when everyone is model-pretty, but whatever. That’s for the network to deal with.

They move to the side, and Nick and Vanessa keep going.

“Maxwell.” A white guy steps up, scruffy beard and arrogant smirk. Maggie hates him already. Alex mentioned that he’s a tech genius with a narcissistic streak a mile wide, and, yeah. He looks like it.

She quickly looks over to Alex who’s curling her lip in distaste. Maggie almost laughs.

“And his fiancé, Whitney.”

Ah, Alex’s arch nemesis in her suite. She looks like a total high-maintenance bitch. Much like Jessica last season, actually. Tall, blonde, skinny, overly made up.

She and Maxwell quite possibly deserve each other.

“Chris, and his fiancé, Jasmine.” Maggie vaguely remembers the guys in her suite talking about Jasmine, but she has no frame of reference for either of them. They both look like conventionally hot people, just like everyone else. She’s worried about forgetting names already.

“Jane.”

Maggie’s head snaps up as the tallest woman in the circle steps forward, and, yes. It’s exactly the one Maggie had hoped was Jane. Huge dykey energy. She has long curly hair falling down her back, and she’s wearing a button down shirt tucked into black jeans. Her sleeves are rolled up, like a total fucking lesbian. She looks like she should be pitching a softball with one hand and flipping a steak with the other.

Maggie can’t wait to hang out with her again.

She grins at Jane, and Jane quirks an eyebrow, like she can read Maggie’s homo energy just as strongly.

“And her fiancé, Maura.”

And the woman who steps forward is absolutely nothing like what Maggie had pictured. Maura is the pathologist who liked to talk about autopsy protocols, so Maggie had expected her to look more like the pathologists she knows: a regular person who spends most of their time in a basement, with only corpses for company. But the woman who steps forward, smiling shyly at Jane, is quite possibly a supermodel.

Maggie doesn’t know anything about clothes but even she can tell that Maura’s the best dressed of anyone. Her pencil skirt and blouse are perfectly fitted, and she’s wearing those heels with the red soles that are ridiculously expensive. Her hair is perfectly shiny and curled, and she’s impossibly put together.

Maggie’s brain shuts down entirely, completely unable to picture this woman using a rib spreader and holding stomach contents in her hands.

She sneaks a quick look over to Alex whose jaw is dropped as well. And, actually…Maura must have also dated men because all of the men in the circle are also looking at her with extreme shock. Like maybe they shouldn’t have dismissed her so quickly. Like if they’d known that she looked like that, they’ve have put up with her weird conversation for longer.

Maybe this experiment has some value after all.

Maggie waggles her eyebrows at Jane, and Jane winks at her.

Yeah, Jane knows exactly what’s going on. She’s a detective too, after all.

Next up are Davis and Morgan, two boringly pretty white people who Maggie doesn’t know. Alex looks like she doesn’t much care for Morgan, so Maggie mentally slots them into the same “try to avoid” category as Maxwell and Whitney.

Hunter and Caroline are next, and they’re both kind of short. Caroline is even shorter than Maggie. Hunter looks like every white guy named Hunter.

After that, Nick calls up Duke, and Maggie sees Alex choke a bit on laughter, clearly remembering the man meat incident. His fiancé is a girl named Stephanie who Maggie immediately knows she’s going to confuse with Morgan.

They move to the side, and then the only people left are Alex and Maggie.

“Maggie,” Nick says, and she walks up to him, ready to get this over with.

“And her fiancé, Alex.”

There are two quick explosions of sound from the other couples—clearly from Maxwell and Duke. Two guys who thought they had a real chance with her.

Alex obviously notices, but she just walks up to Maggie and takes her hand. It’s been twelve hours since the last time they touched, and it sends a fission of electricity up Maggie’s spine.

Alex is fucking beautiful.

Alex rolls her eyes, just the smallest amount, and Maggie grins.

“What?” Maxwell mutters. “Wait, what?”

Maggie’s turning, ready to protect Alex at all costs, but Alex is shaking her head, pulling Maggie back into her body. She presses a soft kiss to Maggie’s head, and Maggie melts into her.

“His loss,” she mutters, and Maggie shivers under her lips.

* * *

Their hotel room is beautiful. A big bed, a patio with a table and chairs, a bathtub strangely right next to the bed. The bed is covered in rose petals.

Alex wants to laugh, but she’s afraid to. What if Maggie takes stuff like that seriously?

But Maggie is sliding her shoulder bag off onto the floor, and raising one of those beautiful eyebrows. “Subtle.”

Alex’s lip quirks up. Maybe she doesn’t have to be so nervous.

But then the PAs carrying their suitcases leave, and it’s just the two of them. And two camera people, of course, and a producer. It’s very weird.

The producer is setting out dinner and the camera men are dealing with the lighting, and Maggie steps out to the patio. Alex follows her, nervous and unsure of what they’re supposed to do.

“This is so weird,” she mutters, joining Maggie at the railing.

“The weirdest,” she agrees. “I mean, all this stuff, this room, and these other people, and I’m still…I don’t know.”

“What?”

Maggie slowly slides her hand over, resting it on top of Alex’s. Sparks shoot up Alex’s spine.

“Usually by the time you go on vacation with someone, you’re used to their physical presence. You know what it feels like to have your body be around theirs, you know? Not just sexually, but just, physically.”

Alex nods. She’s never gone on vacation with a boyfriend, but she knows what Maggie means. There are people whose bodies she’s used to, who don’t make her jump when they come near. Kara and her mom, of course, and J’onn. The agents she’s trained with, and Kara’s friends. People she’s slid along walls with, hip to hip, weapons at the ready, waiting for her signal to round a doorway and start firing.

Maggie’s body is like crackling electricity, demanding her constant attention.

Alex flips her hand, letting their fingers interlace. “Let’s just start with dinner,” she suggests, almost in a whisper.

And maybe it’s from the wind coming off the beach, but she thinks Maggie might shudder, just a little bit.

* * *

Dinner is totally weird. They can’t stop staring at each other, and it’s weird to stare while you’re eating. There’s champagne but they don’t have much. They each shower—separately—because of the airplane.

They finally end up sitting on the ledge of their bathtub, facing the bed but not on it yet. Maggie is softly rubbing Alex’s hip and Alex is trailing her fingers up and down Maggie’s arm.

“It’s hard not to be creep,” Maggie finally admits after what feels like an hour of just staring at Alex. “I’m trying, but I’m sorry. I’m so…”

Alex smiles at her, grasping onto her arm for a second. “Yeah,” she says, her voice breathy like it was sometimes in the pod. Seeing her face—so open and caring and beautiful—is making it impossible for Maggie to breathe. “Yeah, I can’t stop looking at you.”

She brushes her fingers up Maggie’s arm again, going higher this time, and Maggie dares to dip a bit further down Alex’s hip.

Alex sucks in a breath, and Maggie can’t take it anymore.

She stands up, her hand naturally sliding into Alex’s. She tugs, just a suggestion, and Alex gracefully rises up.

Maggie steps in, closing until there’s only a whisper between them. She reaches up, brushing Alex’s neck with her soft fingers.

“Can I?” Her voice is a little hoarse and Alex’s eyes are darting between hers, dilated and full.

“Yes,” she breathes, and Maggie comes quickly in.

It’s so much better than in that hallway with the red carpet and the opaque glass. No pinching heels or tight dresses, no time limit, no harsh lighting. Yes, they’re being filmed, but, still.

Maggie lets herself wrap her arms around Alex, pulling her close and splaying her hands on Alex’s back. Alex slings her arms up around Maggie’s neck, cupping the back of Maggie’s head as her lips work in, soft and warm and full.

Maggie can’t help but grasp tightly at Alex’s waist as she licks inside her mouth, and it’s a few long minutes before she manages to pull back enough to breathlessly order the cameras and producer out of the room.

They troop out, happy with what they’ve gotten, and then Alex and Maggie are finally alone for the very first time.

Because they’ll be changing clothes—and possibly having sex—in this one room, there aren’t any cameras mounted on the walls. They’re really, actually, finally, privately alone.

Alex obviously knows it too.

“Hi,” she whispers, gently combing her fingers through Maggie’s hair.

“Hi, beautiful.”

Alex leans back in, doing something with her tongue that makes Maggie’s mind go blissfully blank.


	9. Couples Retreat

**DAY 10: COUPLES RETREAT**

Last season, the couples got to spend what looked like a day or two totally alone in Mexico before the group activities started. This year, no such luck.

On day one, they’re all ushered down to chairs on the same section of the beach. They send Maggie down first—interrupting their breakfast—telling her Alex will join in a bit. Which is stupid, but, whatever. Maggie quickly goes up to their room, changes clothes, and goes downstairs and out to the beach.

It’s a gorgeous beach—white sand, clear water, brilliant blue sky.

Maggie’s wearing shorts and a tank top over her bathing suit, but all the straight girls are already there, laying out on chairs and wearing just the tiniest bikinis in the world, and she starts to feel a little…tomboyish in a bad way. Like maybe Alex won’t like what she sees, in comparison. Maggie’s never going to be the frilly dress, gossamer cover up kind of girl. Not like these other girls.

Even Maura’s wearing an incredibly fashionable bathing suit without anything over it. All the guys are drooling over her, but she’s deeply immersed in what seems to be _The Journal of Clinical Pathology_ , and she’s basically dead to the world.

But then, like a vision, Jane walks up. She’s wearing shorts and a t-shirt, with a towel slung over her shoulder. She’s holding a drink in each hand, sunglasses on her face and a Red Sox cap on her head. Some of the straight girls have big floppy hats on, but Jane is wearing an honest-to-god baseball hat, and Maggie loves her.

Jane walks directly over to Maura, putting both drinks down on the table between their chairs. Maura takes a minute to pull herself out of her journal, but then she beams at Jane and pulls her down for a sweet kiss.

Maggie misses Alex, even though she saw her just minutes ago.

Jane and Maura talk quickly before Jane kisses her again and straightens up. She grabs something from a box and jogs over to Maggie. She’s holding a football.

“Wanna play?”

Maggie grins at her.

Thank god for sporty lesbians.

* * *

Alex is finally allowed to make her way down to the beach. She’s wearing one of the bathing suits she panic bought with Kara the night before leaving to film the show. She hadn’t read the packing list very closely, and it demanded _four_ bathing suits. Alex has had the same two speedo one-piece bathing suits forever—they’re better for surfing—but they’re not exactly tv-worthy.

So they had gone to Target an hour before closing, and Kara had thrown basically every single bathing suit in the store into a fitting room and demanded that she try them all on.

She ended up with three acceptable suits, tossing in her blue speedo—the one with less pilling—just in case she really needed four.

After some light agonizing this morning, she had chosen the emerald green one-piece with the strategic cut outs that had been Kara’s favorite at Target. She’s wearing a flimsy dress of some sort that Kara had demanded was “the perfect beach cover-up.”

Alex had protested—“there’s nowhere to put a gun”—but Kara had rolled her eyes and said, “that’s the point, you useless commando,” and had shoved her out of the dressing room with her Very Stern Supergirl Face on.

So now Alex is wearing a bathing suit that somehow shows cleavage, her bare sides, most of her stomach and almost all of her back, but considers itself a one-piece, and a flimsy floral dress that is positively clinging to her, and she feels like an idiot.

She wishes for a thigh holster.

She gets down to the beach, and the first thing she sees is a row of girls in tiny, perfect bikinis, with their tiny perfect bodies, who all have clearly go to tanning salons and get their hair professionally dyed. They’re reading magazines or just talking, sipping fruity cocktails even though it’s just after breakfast.

Alex considers turning tail and running.

She could keep up with girls like this back in her clubbing days, mostly because she hated herself and had no standards and would get drunk enough to let the most douchey men pick her up. But now—sober, clear-headed, lethal, and serious—she’s got nothing.

But Jenna gives her a little shove from behind, and she keeps going.

She dumps her towel near Maura, who doesn’t even look up. She’s also reading what looks like a magazine, but, oh. It’s the _Journal of Clinical Pathology_. Alex is in the middle of her second revision of an article for that journal about autopsy protocols for alien cadavers. It’s a great journal.

Thank god for nerds.

“Hey, Maura. Have you seen Maggie?”

Maura doesn’t pull her eyes from the journal. “I think she and Jane are playing American football.”

Alex quirks an eyebrow at Maura calling it “American football,” but, sure. It’s precise, at least.

She looks up and down the beach, and, _oh_.

Oh.

There they are.

Maggie’s wearing a bikini top and jean shorts, aviators perched on her nose, running with her hands outstretched for the ball. Her thigh muscles are churning as she sprints through the dry sand, and her abs are contracting as she dives for it. She rolls twice, popping up with the ball tucked in her arms, triumphant. Her biceps and triceps flex as she throws it back in a perfect spiral.

She brushes the sand off her body, and Alex feels literal drool slipping out of her mouth.

She sets off at a fast trot.

* * *

“Behind you,” Jane calls out. Maggie turns quickly, and, holy shit.

Alex is trotting up to her, wearing some sort of see-through dress that hides absolutely nothing. She’s looking at Maggie like she wants to devour her, and Maggie feels a flush sweep down her body, lingering in a few particular spots.

Jane chokes out a laugh behind her, but Maggie can’t be bothered by that.

Alex doesn’t stop until she’s physically crashed into Maggie, grasping her hips to keep them both upright.

She’s kissing Maggie before Maggie can blink, and Maggie sinks into the feeling of Alex’s hands against her skin.

“Hey, beautiful,” Maggie mumbles into her lips, but Alex pulls back a bit, shaking her head.

“No, you’re… _fuck_ , Maggie.”

Maggie grins at her. She’d taken off her shirt a few throws ago, and it seems to have been a good choice.

“Like what you see, Danvers?” She makes sure her dimples are showing, and she practically feels Alex’s knees go weak.

“Yes,” she breathes into Maggie’s mouth, earnest and wanting and incredibly hot. “Very much, yes.”

* * *

Jane tosses the ball to her, and Alex throws it back, clean and easy.

Throwing a football isn’t actually that hard, as long as you care about your form. Alex lines her fingers up just right on the laces, extends through her arm and tightens her core, making sure her body is the perfect fulcrum.

It spirals beautifully, coming right into Jane’s catching pocket.

“Damn, girl!” Jane laughs. “That’s a fucking _arm_! Come play with us.”

Alex nods, quickly slipping out of her stupid cover-up. You can’t really play beach football in a long dress that you can barely stride in.

She doesn’t think about it too much, distracted by the chance to exercise and mess around with Maggie and Jane, but then Maggie makes a strangled sound next to her. Alex looks over quickly to see Maggie—well. There’s really no other word than ogling.

Maggie is ogling her, and all of Alex’s worries fade into the background. Who cares about hot straight girls with perfect tans when the most gorgeous lesbian in the world is staring at you like she wants to devour you, right here and now?

Alex lets herself saunter past Maggie, dropping her dress unceremoniously on the sand. “See something you like, Sawyer?” she murmurs, swinging her hips just enough.

Maggie just makes a sputtering sound, and Alex beams out at the ocean.

Maybe she doesn’t need as much help attracting lesbians as she’d thought.

* * *

Alex’s bathing suit is sent directly from lesbian jesus. The only thing better would be fully naked Alex, but Maggie’s willing to wait. And the odds of fully naked Alex playing football on a beach are pretty slim, so Maggie’s quite content with her current view, thank you very much.

Alex is—unsurprisingly—competitive, athletic, and fierce. She dives for everything, hopping up to her feet laughing, covered in a fine coat of sand.

The first time she brushes off her chest, Maggie nearly whites out. Jane throws the ball to her and it sails right past her head.

Eventually the men start to feel emasculated, and they come over to join. All the guys come, plus Olivia. The rest of the girls stay on their chairs, sipping their morning cocktails and gossiping.

Maura, of course, is still brain-deep in her journal. It’s hard to tell from over where she is, but Maggie’s pretty sure she’s pulled a highlighter out from somewhere and is annotating.

What a strange person. Maggie likes her.

And every once in a while Maura pulls herself out of the text and calls something encouraging over to Jane about the physics of her throwing stance, so it seems like she’s just as smitten with Jane as Jane is with her, in her own very particular way. It’s cute.

They quickly form teams for a touch-football scrimmage. Two girls per team—Jane and Maggie on one, Alex and Olivia on the other. The guys split up—Duke, Chris, and Hunter on Alex’s team, and Maxwell, Matt, and Davis on Maggie’s. She’s not thrilled about being on the same team as Maxwell, but she and Matt high-five.

Jane was living in Maxwell and Davis’ suite, and she rolls her eyes at Maggie, so she guesses there’s a story there.

They quickly establish the rules, and then they’re off.

It’s…not nearly as fun as it was just tossing the ball around with Jane and Alex. The guys are clearly all competing for who is the most masculine, which is incredibly boring and doesn’t make for good teamwork. Duke and Davis both insist on quarterbacking, which is ridiculous because Alex, Maggie, and Jane definitely have the best arms and aim, but, whatever.

Maxwell clearly doesn’t know shit about football but he’s trying to seem cool, and Maggie wishes he would just do what he wants to do. Look at Maura—she’s not doing anything she doesn’t want to, just to impress Jane.

But, of course, Whitney seems like the kind of girl who would care if her boyfriend (fiancé?) wasn’t playing football, so. Who knows.

But he…doesn’t seem that interested in Whitney. He seems…pretty fucking into Alex, actually.

He keeps leaving his player to guard Alex, getting really close to her. Jane’s supposed to be guarding her—Maggie guarding Olivia, who’s shorter—but Maxwell somehow ends up next to Alex on every defensive play.

After three gratuitous touching incidents, Maggie has enough. She calls them together and draws up defensive assignments, telling him sternly to guard Chris and to leave Alex to Jane. They break and line up. Maggie talks some friendly trash to Olivia, who is grinning back at her. Chris snaps it to Duke who backs up, scanning the beach for a good play. Maggie body blocks Olivia easily, keeping her from running her route.

Alex is peeling off down the beach, with Jane in hot pursuit. Duke—who can actually complete a throw, unlike Davis—throws Alex the ball, and she catches it easily. She whoops, cutting left and starting to make a run for the line of sandals that mark the endzone.

But, out of nowhere, Maxwell appears from her other side. It’s touch football—two hands on a player and they’re done—but he fully grabs her and pulls her into him, toppling both of them into the sand. His arms are locked around her waist, and she collapses on top of him.

She’s still holding the football as she tries to roll off him.

“Get off,” she’s saying as Maggie and Jane rush up. “Let go.”

Maggie knows Alex is actively not hurting him, and she could break out of his stupid hold in a second, but still. This is too fucking far.

She’s ready to commit a murder, but Jane intervenes first.

“Let go, you fucking asshole,” she’s saying, holding her hands out to pick Alex up off his body. She pulls Alex up and sets her on her feet, staring daggers down at Maxwell, still lying prone on the sand. “What part of _touch_ football don’t you understand, you dick? You could have hurt her.”

Jane keeps laying into him as he gets up, but Maggie goes right to Alex. “You okay?”

Alex gives her a little smile, something a bit tight. “No, yeah. I’m fine.”

She’s walking over to the side, and Maggie follows her. “I swear, I told him to stop trying to guard you. Jane’s supposed to be on you.”

Alex, off their makeshift field now, bends down and picks up her dress. “No, I know, Mags. I don’t blame you. I’m fine. Really.”

But she’s putting on her dress, clearly uncomfortable with showing so much skin around Maxwell.

Maggie takes off her sunglasses. “We don’t have to keep playing,” she offers, hoping the microphones won’t pick it up.

But Alex is shaking her head. She’s rucking up her dress, tying it in a literal knot to make it short enough that she can run in it. “Really, I’m fine,” she says.

Finally she looks up into Maggie’s eyes. “He’s gross,” she admits softly, “But I can handle it.”

She leans in, pressing her body into Maggie’s.

“Kiss it better,” she mutters, wrapping a hand around Maggie’s neck. “Please.”

And it feels a little bit like a dog marking its territory, but Maggie kisses her.

And when Alex presses hard into her body, trailing her fingertips over Maggie’s bare shoulder blades, well. Maggie forgets all about everyone else.

* * *

Maxwell is gross. He’s really just like everyone she dated in college—unable to understand how anyone could be anything but obsessed with him, because, of course, he’s obsessed with himself.

It’s already obvious, but Alex goes out of her way to flirt with Maggie, to touch her, to kiss her, to smack her butt when they pass each other. Not to perform for Maxwell—because, _gross_ —but to make sure Maggie knows where her affections are.

And after the football game, she joyfully strips off her cover-up again, and saunters up into Maggie’s personal space.

“Care to join me for a swim?” she asks, careful to pitch her voice low and seductive.

Maggie swallows hard, nodding jerkily.

Alex presses her luck, reaching down and popping the button on Maggie’s shorts.

Maggie squeaks and jumps backwards. Alex laughs, deep and full, her hands up in surrender.

“Just trying to help expedite the process,” she laughs.

They wade out into the water—refreshingly cool but not cold. Alex dives under a wave, and Maggie calls her a silkie.

Alex kisses her until a wave breaks them apart.

Maggie just reaches back out, hooking her arms around Alex’s neck and literally climbing her like a jungle gym, wrapping her legs around Alex’s waist.

Alex can’t possibly breathe.

Maggie’s wearing a bikini. Her bare thighs are bracketing Alex’s waist, up against the cutouts in Alex’s bathing suit. Skin on skin. Alex’s arms are around Maggie’s back, holding her up, and Maggie is slippery and wet and silky under her hands.

Maggie is kissing her wetly, scratching at her scalp and sighing into her mouth.

Alex staggers a little at the impact of each wave, keeping her eyes open to make sure they both don’t drown. She can feel Maggie’s chest pressed up against hers, and she knows that there are just smallest wisps of fabric between them.

A stronger wave hits her, and she quickly shifts a hand to keep Maggie balanced. It isn’t until the wave passes that she realizes that she’s gripping Maggie’s ass now, quite firmly, with one hand.

Judging from the small gasp into her mouth, Maggie doesn’t mind much.

Alex readjusts her grip, freeing her mouth just long enough to suck the salt water off Maggie’s neck.

They kiss until Maggie’s fingers turn pruney and her skin erupts in goosebumps. Alex carries her all the way out, across the sand, and lays her down on her chair without Maggie’s feet touching the sand.

Maggie looks like she wants to rip Alex’s bathing suit off right there and then, and Alex can’t quite blame her.

* * *

That night, after dinner, back in their suite, away from the cameras and microphones and producers, Maggie peels off Alex’s shirt and bra.

Alex crawls on top of her, returns the favor, and sinks into her body.

Maggie has never been quite so happy before, she thinks.


	10. Couples Retreat

** DAY 11: COUPLE’S RETREAT **

On the second day in Mexico, they go out on a boat. It’s gorgeous on the water.

The producers keep pulling Alex away from Maggie to be next to Maxwell and Duke. They’re trying to build the drama, and Maggie’s sick of it. They’re doing it to Maura too, and they’re clearly just as biphobic as they were last season.

Maggie doesn’t know what she’d do without Jane’s friendship, both of them staring daggers and trying to make jokes as the producers try to get their girlfriends to fall in love with fuckboys.

Matt is amazing though: he keeps just happening to interrupt those moments. He’ll join private conversations, slinging an arm around both Alex and Maxwell, inserting his body between them. He’ll yell, “Group shots!” right when Duke is perving on Maura, making everyone stop what they’re doing and come to him for tequila. The producers are pissed, but he and Olivia are this year’s Lauren and Cameron, so they have to keep him happy.

And in the quiet moments when the producers are busy drumming up drama between other people, he and Olivia join the queer team in quiet happiness.

Alex and Maura are kind of amazing to watch, though. Maggie’s beyond impressed by how aloof Alex manages to be, even with a sunburnt nose and no shirt on (the producers had literally confiscated the shirt she’d tried to wear over her bikini today). She looks bored and disinterested with literally everyone except for Maggie, Jane, Maura, Matt, and Olivia. And Maura just babbles about one of her varied and complex interests, pretending she doesn’t understand how it’s a total buzzkill.

She has pretty decent social skills around Jane, but she’s convincing Duke that all she knows how to talk about is how long it takes certain types of flies to lay their eggs in the eyes of human corpse on a hot day in Uganda. It’s amazing.

Maggie tries to be friendly to everyone—except fucking Maxwell and Duke—but Alex…doesn’t.

Maggie remembers wondering, back in the pods, if Alex was as open and kind with everyone as she was with Maggie, and the answer is pretty clear now.

She’s really fucking not.

She’s somewhere between closed off and cold with everyone except their close friends. She’s intentionally aloof with Maxwell, Duke, and Whitney, but she’s also basically blank and vaguely unfriendly with everyone else. It’s like she’s two different people, and it’s kind of incredible to watch.

It’s clear to Maggie, who gets to see her at her softest, her most tender, when affection is beaming out of her eyes and adoration is dancing out of her fingertips, painting care and love onto Maggie’s skin. With Maggie, Alex’s hands are always reaching out, roaming up her arms, tickling her wrists, softly rubbing at the inside of her knees. Alex is always leaning over to whisper how pretty Maggie is, how smart, how much she likes her. Alex is a cuddler, and a crier, alone in their suite. She talks about her sister— _freaking_ _Supergirl by the way_ —with love in her voice.

She’s the most openly loving person Maggie’s ever been with. No games, no withholding. Just gently steamrolling Maggie’s fears and insecurities with affection, all day every day.

And with everyone else she’s…not. She’s said the rookies at work are terrified of her, and Maggie gets why. She treats most people like suspects.

She’s a distrustful agent out in the world, even during the filming of this show, and she’s a complete mush puddle in private with Maggie.

She’s fucking fascinating.

* * *

“Are you doing okay?”

Alex is combing out her hair after her shower. She turns to look at Maggie, who is lounging on their bed, looking fucking gorgeous.

“What do you mean?”

Maggie sits up a bit. “The producers were really throwing you at Maxwell tonight at dinner. Are you doing okay?”

Alex sets down her comb and pads softly over to the bed. She sits down, facing Maggie.

“Yeah,” she says softly. “I’m fine. He’s a dick, but I can handle him.”

Maggie makes a little face, and Alex reaches out a soft finger. “I promise, baby. If it gets to be too much, I’ll tell you.” She lets her finger slowly slip down to Maggie’s lips. “But right now it’s just like an undercover mission. It’s annoying and stupid, but it’s okay with me. I’m okay.”

Maggie seems to believe her, because she opens her mouth and sucks Alex’s finger inside it, and, oh. Talk about a mood change.

Alex gruffly orders the cameras out of the room, bolting the door behind them. She climbs back onto the bed, stripping off her own shirt.

“Hello,” Maggie says, her eyes wide.

Alex says nothing, just pulls Maggie up enough to strip her too. They’re both just in sleep shorts now, just like last night.

Alex lays carefully down on top of her half naked girlfriend, kissing her way into Maggie’s mouth.

“You’re gorgeous,” Maggie manages to mumble, but Alex lets her body speak for her.

Alex has slept with quite a few people—very few sober and very few good—so it’s not a shock to her that making out with Maggie is better than sex with everyone else. But, holy shit. It’s not even a contest.

And she’s a little surprised at how quickly and easily she comes, grinding up against Maggie, their hands still above the belt. She gasps it into Maggie’s neck, and Maggie’s palms are soothing on her back, her neck, her cheeks.

They haven’t said the love words yet, but Alex can see them swimming up into Maggie’s eyes.

That’s a bit too much all at once. Alex rolls over, bringing Maggie with her, inviting Maggie to rock her own way into bliss.

And, with a hard bite to Alex’s lips, she does.

* * *

** DAY 12: COUPLE’S RETREAT **

The third day is much the same. Alex and Maura keep being pulled away from their girlfriends to stand around with men.

But today Whitney seems especially pissed.

And, honestly, Maggie gets it. If Maxwell is genuinely into Alex, which he seems to be, then Whitney really pales in comparison. She’s not smart, and she’s catty, and Maggie is completely confused about what the two of them talk about together. He’s an egomaniac, but he’s absolutely a genius, and he seems to light up during conversations about physics and genetic engineering with Alex and Maura.

But he’s also a total tool, so Maggie and Jane can’t help but feel superior.

But then the third night, the three nerds are drawing chemical compounds on napkins, arguing about something or other, and Jane is throwing back more beers than usual.

Maggie quirks an eyebrow at her, and Jane shrugs. It’s like they got all their talking out in the pods, and now they can communicate silently. “I’m nervous she’s gonna get bored with me,” Jane says to her beer bottle, jerking her head over at the three of them. “I can’t talk about that shit with her.”

But Maggie’s already shaking her head. “She picked you, not him. Or Alex. She had two brilliant scientists at her fingertips, and she picked you. That means something.”

Jane shrugs, and Maggie squeezes her arm.

“I think it’s gonna work out. She’s nuts about you.”

Jane bites her lip. “It’s stupid, but I…I really love her, Mags.”

Maggie rubs her back a little bit. “I know. I know you do.”

Alex comes over a few minutes later, easily taking Maggie’s beer out of her hand and taking a sip from it.

“All nerded out?” Maggie asks, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Never,” Alex grins, “but they started talking about rich people stuff, so I got bored. Who was at what gala, or some shit. I don’t know.”

Jane makes a little groaning sound, and Alex tilts her head, considering. “What’s wrong?”

Maggie turns to Jane, asking the question silently, and Jane gives her a little nod. “Jane’s worried that Maura’s going to leave her for Maxwell.”

“Ew! What?”

“Not for him, specially,” Jane corrects. “Just for someone, you know. Smarter. More refined or something. Someone at her level. I mean, hell, I didn’t even go to college.”

But Alex is waving her hand in that dorky way she does. She’s nestled into Maggie’s side, and Maggie just wants to wrap herself around Alex’s back like a koala, like back in the ocean.

“No way. She’s obsessed with you. You’re all she talks about. Seriously. I mean, science is fun, but she can be nerdy at work, or with friends. She’s getting what she wants out of a relationship with you. Trust me.”

“You think?” Jane is anxiously picking at the label on her bottle, and Maggie’s heart clenches for her.

“I know. She’s said that she never thought she’d date someone who would like her for who she really is. She’s happy with you, Rizzoli. And I think she’s probably bored of his bragging about what restaurants he’s an investor in by now. You should go rescue her.”

Jane is clearly still on the fence, so Maggie makes the choice for her. She grabs Jane’s beer from her hand and chugs the rest of it. “Oops,” she says, “Looks like you need another drink. Why don’t you see if Maura needs another one too.”

Jane rolls her eyes but goes to do it.

They both watch her go. Maggie drops a kiss on Alex’s shoulder, and Alex hums into it.

“You’re a good friend,” Alex says softly. “I like that about you.”

Maggie slips her arm tighter around Alex’s waist.

“Do you mind that I’m not as smart as you are?”

Alex takes another sip of what is apparently their mutual beer. “If that were true I wouldn’t mind, but it’s not.”

“Come on,”

But Alex is spinning into her, their chests almost touching now. They’re both barefoot so Alex is a bit taller.

“You’re a detective in the fucking science police, Maggie. You solve cases. You figure things out. I just shoot stuff.”

“And create vaccines for alien illnesses. A classic job for idiots.”

Alex ducks in for a quick kiss. “Bioengineers aren’t the only smart people in the world, Maggie. I’m so excited to work on cases with you, because I know we’ll get them solved faster than anyone. You have so much that I don’t. And it’s okay that I have things that you don’t. Partnership, and all that bullshit, you know?”

Maggie opens her mouth to protest, but Alex puts a finger against her lips.

“This line of thought is the only stupid one you’ve ever had. Don’t dig yourself deeper, babe.”

Maggie flushes at the nickname, and Alex gives her a truly evil grin.

“Now kiss me before I change my mind,” she teases, but Maggie’s already way ahead of her.

* * *

On the third night, after shaking off everyone else and ditching their cameras, Maggie softly strips every piece of clothing off of Alex and finally gets to worship her properly. Alex is flushed high in her chest, breathing hard, beautifully responsive and just a little loud.

She’s also a very fast learner.

She rests her head on Maggie’s chest, after, glowing and sated and happy. She presses kisses to Maggie’s collarbone and whispers things that light Maggie’s soul on fire.

They fall asleep like that, and in the middle of the night, Maggie wakes up to find herself spooning Alex, who is warm and soft and melted against her.

And it’s only been twelve days, but, _fuck_.

This could maybe be it.

* * *

** DAY 13: COUPLE’S RETREAT **

The shit really and truly hits the fan on the fourth day in Mexico, and Maggie’s only surprised that the producers let it get this far before a something like this happened.

Whitney has started spending a lot of time with Duke, especially while Maxwell has been lusting after Alex.

Duke, of course, is with Stephanie, who is not to be confused with Morgan, who looks just like her but is with Davis, who Maggie still doesn’t think she could pick out of a lineup.

But Maxwell is clearly not as into Whitney as he is Alex, and Whitney can tell, and Duke is hotter than Maxwell, and she’s leaning into it. The producers love it. They keep setting up catty fights between Whitney and Stephanie, subtle and devastating, totally _Mean Girls_ style. During one such fight, Alex leans over to Maggie and whispers, “Whitney, tell him that his hair looks sexy pushed back,” and Maggie chokes so hard on her mojito that Alex has to slap her on the back, looking a bit chagrined for almost killing her fiancée.

Olivia grins. “Stop trying to make fetch happen,” she insists, wagging her finger at Matt. “It’s never going to happen.”

He blinks, several times. “I have no idea what’s happening right now.”

She doesn’t seem bothered. “You want to do something fun?” she asks him, all innocent.

“Sure?”

“Wanna go to taco bell?”

He just opens and closes his mouth a few times before retreating, muttering something about getting another drink.

Olivia and Alex both break out into nearly hysterical laughter, and Maggie presses a quick kiss to Alex’s shoulder. “You go, Glen Coco,” she mumbles, and Alex barks out another laugh.

* * *

But a few hours later it’s not as funny. The drama has spilled over, and it seems like everyone is fighting. Stephanie is turning on Duke, Whitney is drunkenly yelling at Maxwell, and Morgan is coming at Stephanie on Whitney’s behalf. Caroline and Hunter are fighting about not having had sex, and Chris and Jasmine are fighting about not having fought yet. Davis is flirting with Jasmine, who apparently he really liked in the pods. It’s a fucking mess.

Maggie expects Whitney and Maxwell to be the first to break up, but it seems like the producers won’t let them. The drama!

Instead, later that night—their second to last night—Hunter tells Caroline that they aren’t having sex because he isn’t attracted to her, and she storms off. Just after, Chris demands that Jasmine stop talking to Davis and all the other guys, and she calls him a controlling piece of shit. She throws a piece of bread at his face, tells him that she’s in charge of herself, and she rips off her microphone pack as she follows Caroline out of the bar.

Neither couple is at breakfast the next day.

* * *

** DAY 14: COUPLE’S RETREAT **

The last day is weird. Whitney is positively throwing herself at Duke in a last-ditch attempt to make Maxwell jealous.

Maxwell is moping around, making eyes at Alex.

Jane is stuttering around Maura, still anxious that Maura will dump her back in the real world.

Maggie is trying to build up the confidence to tell Alex that she knows about Supergirl, but keeps chickening out.

Only Matt and Olivia seem immune. She’s teaching him Spanish so that he can ask her abuelo for her hand in marriage. Maggie finds him practicing in front of a mirror, and gently corrects his pronunciation.

The day seems to fly by, and pretty soon it’s their final dinner in Mexico, and Maggie hasn’t managed to find a time away from the cameras to confide in Alex. Or, at least that’s what she tells herself.

And then that night Alex sends away the cameras, and Maggie takes a deep breath to tell her, but then Alex is slipping out of her pants and shyly asking Maggie to teach her how to use her mouth, and all thoughts of Supergirl fly right out the window.


	11. Meeting the Parents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience as i fought with this chapter and with my fatigue! Sending you tons of isolation love!
> 
> We're on day 14 over here, and yesterday i laughed for twenty minutes about draping a pair of pants over my dog's back and saying I PUT PANTS ON THE DOG, so. things are going great.

**DAY 15: MOVING IN TOGETHER**

Maggie’s excited to leave Mexico. She’s been enjoying it, of course—what’s not to enjoy about a free trip to Mexico with your beautiful new girlfriend either in a bikini or panting under you in bed—but it’s not real life. And all the artificial drama got old days ago, and she’s ready to stop having to see Maxwell, Whitney, and Duke every minute of every day.

She’s ready to get back to work, to get her phone back. To see her coworkers. To call her best friend. She’s been uprooted for fifteen very long days, and she wants to sink back into the familiar, to ground herself.

And, just maybe, to start planting some roots together with Alex.

Everything with Alex so far has been amazing but it’s been so artificial, such a fantasy of what falling in love could be. Even after the pods, Mexico was designed to look pretty but be a pressure cooker. One bed, constant Maxwell, endless surveillance.

Maggie wants to restart her real life—coworkers and job and friends and privacy—and figure out if she and Alex work in the real world.

They all assemble in the lobby on their last morning, suitcases packed. Whitney is fuming, Max is moping around Alex, Duke is eyeing Whitney, Stephanie is all over Duke in a very blatant display of dominance, and Morgan is staring Stephanie down. Jane and Maura are standing a little stiffly, clearly anxious about returning to their real lives where Maura’s a socialite with social problems and Jane’s the crass primary provider for three generations of loud Southie Italians. Only Matt and Olivia seem unaffected, holding hands and speaking softly to each other, heads pressed together.

Alex is fidgeting. She hates waiting for things. She’s very active, Maggie’s learned. Itchy for things to get going. And TV filming is all about waiting, and she’s pretty sure Alex isn’t going to develop a passion for being in front of the cameras anytime soon. She kind of hates it, and Maggie can’t help but agree.

Finally, finally, they all board a small shuttle bus to the airport, get swept through security, board their flight, bounce through a turbulent sky, land in National City, and get priority access through immigrations and customs. Another big van takes them and all their stuff to their new apartments.

Once again, last year it had been a big surprise reveal that they were all living in the same apartment complex, but this year it’s just expected.

It’s completely stupid that they don’t get to live in their own apartments, but, whatever. It’s only until the “weddings,” which are in about three weeks, and then—assuming they’re still together—they can decide whose apartment they’ll move into.

Being the upstairs neighbor of Maxwell and Whitney definitely doesn’t appeal to Maggie, but she understands why production has done it. The fucking drama.

It’s all very and stupid, and Maggie’s just glad that they’re one step closer to being done with this group.

The producers show Maggie and Alex their little apartment—which is small but fine—and hand them their phones back.

Maggie’s in the process of turning hers back on when she notices Alex staring at hers like it’s going to grow teeth and attack her.

“You okay?”

Alex nods, but it’s not convincing.

“I have to call Kara,” she mumbles, still staring down at the sleeping black brick. “I have to tell her. Everything.”

Ah. Right.

Welcome back to real life.

* * *

**DAY 16: MEETING THE PARENTS**

“Alex!” Kara’s screeching is coming through the phone, barely blunted by the tinny speakerphone. “Oh my god, Alex, I missed you so much!!!” It’s first thing in the morning, and Alex had spent all night awake, tossing and turning and twitching in fear.

“Hey Kara,” Alex says, pretending she isn’t choking up at hearing her sister’s voice for the first time in two weeks. “You’re, um, you’re on speakerphone. And on camera.”

“Wait, what? Why?” Alex can hear her making the realization. “OH MY GOD ALEX. ARE YOU STILL ON THE SHOW?? DID YOU COME HOME WITH SOMEONE??”

Alex grimaces a little. Kara’s at maximum excitement, which means she’s likely to accidentally do loop-de-loops in the air and fly right over to Alex’s temporary apartment, and that would be a little bit dicey, what with the panopticon surveillance and all.

And, of course, now Alex has to walk down Kara’s excitement enough to tell her The Thing. The Big Thing.

“I…yeah, I did.”

“OH MY GOD. ALEX. YOU’RE ENGAGED??”

“Uh, sort of?” Alex laughs a little bit and Kara makes a strangled sound.

“Alex! Tell me about him! Oh my god!”

Alex winces, and then lets out a long, shaking breath. She wishes Maggie were here, but she was also the one who forbade her from being in the apartment during this call. Maggie’s so caring and supportive, but Maggie’s dealt with enough rejection. Maggie doesn’t need to hear any of this, or be filmed responding to it. Alex can’t save her from anything that’s happened in her past, but she can save her from this one small thing. So Maggie’s out catching up with her Captain, and Alex is home alone.

Except for the three camera guys and the two producers, of course.

Maggie had kissed her goodbye, and promised that everything would be okay, but Alex is shaking and her vision is starting to dim at the edges.

She grips the kitchen counter, trying to keep herself upright.

“Um, well, the thing is…”

“What? Alex, come on! Spill! I’m dying over here!” Kara doesn’t seem to be getting the general vibe, and Alex can feel herself clenching her jaw and grimacing.

“I, um…I mean, you know I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone.”

“Yeah.”

“But you asked me to really give it a try, and I…I did. And at first, it was for you, but then it was…” A big puff of air. “After a while, it was for me.”

“Good,” Kara says, her voice so full of love that Alex starts to cry, desperately hoping she’ll feel that way in five minutes.

“And I…I met someone. And at first I didn’t…I didn’t know what to make of it. But it…I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And I realized I was…um. I was developing…feelings.”

Kara squeals, and Alex closes her eyes in pain.

She’s terrified.

Usually when she’s afraid, she has adrenaline in her veins and a weapon in her hand. She can take that fear and turn it into determination, into power, into force.

When Kara had said goodbye, flying Fort Rozz into space, she’d turned her fear into an ability to fly a pod into space to rescue her, training and fuel be damned. When Astra had pinned J’onn on that roof, she’d used the adrenaline to harden her heart and had swung her sword with all of her might. When Kara had come out as Supergirl, she’d turned her fear into determination to train her to fight, to fly, to win.

But now she’s sitting at a strange kitchen counter. Her veins empty of everything but terror, her hands uselessly clutching themselves.

She hasn’t felt so powerless since her dad was taken away.

“Keep going!”

She can’t wait another second. The words throw themselves out of her throat, catching and tripping on her tongue on the way out. She says The Thing.

“It’s a girl, Kara. I brought home a girl.”

It’s quiet for a long minute.

Alex cries, her heart clenched tight in her chest, her lungs and kidneys failing. Her skin feels too hot, too tight, and she pulls at her hair, trying not to whimper.

“Say something,” she whispers.

“Sorry, I’m just…wow. A girl.”

“Yeah.”

“Um, how did I not know that you date girls?”

It’s more like an interview with Kara Danvers: CatCo Reporter, than Kara: Little Sister and Hogger of Potstickers.

Alex tries not to sound like she’s crying.

“I’ve…never. I haven’t. Not until now.” _Because I was too scared to have this phone call_.

“Okay, so what happened? I mean, I know we joke a lot about how all guys are trash, but—"

Alex interrupts, slamming a hand on the counter. “This isn’t because I haven’t found the right guy!”

“No, I didn’t—”

But Alex keeps going, the anger keeping her afloat. “There was a guy there, who wanted me. Who still wants me. But I don’t…I didn’t want him. I, um..”

Her voice hitches, and Kara seems to suddenly remember that she’s supposed to be Kara Danvers: Loving Baby Sister right now. “It’s okay, Alex.”

“I only wanted her,” Alex gasps.

“Have you felt like this before?”

Alex closes her eyes. She wants to be truthful. She doesn’t want to lie to Kara. Not anymore. “Not like this,” she whispers. “But, I…yeah. I started to wonder about it in grad school, but I…I think it was earlier. From high school, even.”

“You liked girls in high school?”

“I don’t know. I think maybe I liked Vicky. Sort of.”

Kara makes a little sound. “I didn’t know that.”

Alex chokes out a little laugh. “Me neither.”

“So, what about now? Why did you decide to, um…be with this girl?”

Alex lets out another big breath and tells the truth. “I didn’t want to lie anymore.”

Kara’s voice is very small, like Kara Zor El: Recently Orphaned Alien with No Friends. “You’ve been lying to me? This whole time?”

“No, I don’t mean that—”

Suddenly there are sounds in the background. “Look, Alex, I um…I have to go. I’ll—I’ll call you back later, okay?”

“Kara, wait—” But she’s already gone.

Possibly a Supergirl emergency, and possibly just an excuse.

Alex cries until she hears Maggie’s car pull up.

* * *

She tries not to tell Maggie what happened. Maggie’s parents rejected her when she was a child; Alex’s sister being weird about it when she’s a full grown adult doesn’t even start to compare.

But Maggie isn’t a detective for nothing. She wraps Alex in her arms, leaving warm kisses on her head. She lets Alex curl into her, putting on a baseball game for Alex to stare at until she’s ready to talk.

Not exactly the first day in their new apartment that either had been hoping for.

* * *

Later that afternoon, Maggie’s out at the grocery store. Alex had halfheartedly tried to come along, but Maggie had insisted that she relax, and Alex really isn’t in the mood to go shopping anyway. She’s upset and sad and horrible and she knows herself—she’d pick fights over types of milk and it would be awful and it would be her fault and she’d push Maggie away and then she’d have nothing.

Best to stay home and mope, really.

The cameramen and producers aren’t around—they won’t be filmed 24/7 anymore—and she’s enjoying being completely and utterly alone for the first time in two weeks. She’s sprawled out on the couch, fully leaning into her misery, but then a knock on her front door totally ruins everything.

It must be the producers, because no one else is allowed to know where they live yet, but they aren’t supposed to be back until tonight.

Alex heaves herself off the couch, grumbling audibly. But once she opens the door, her mouth falls silent and she just stands there, staring.

It’s Kara.

Surrounded by cameramen and a producer.

Okay, so that explains how she found the apartment. Or, at least how she’s explaining how she found the apartment. _I could hear Alex’s heartbeat from across town_ probably wouldn’t be a very good excuse on national TV.

“What are you doing here?” Alex can’t help that her voice comes out hard. Hurt and afraid and so lonely.

But Kara doesn’t flinch. She’s standing Supergirl tall. “I wanted to talk to you. That wasn’t…that’s not how I wanted to end that conversation, earlier.”

Alex steps aside, letting her into the apartment. The rush of cameras and production people follow her. Alex hates having to do this in front of them.

But the first thing Kara does is sweep her into a bone-cracking hug, and Alex forgets about everything else. Kara is holding onto her like she’d nearly lost her, and Alex is shaking in her arms.

“Please don’t be mad,” she whispers into Kara’s neck. “Please.”

“Never,” Kara says, squeezing her so tightly that Alex is genuinely afraid for her bone structure.

She pulls back, just a bit.

“Come,” Kara says, tugging at her. “Come sit with me.”

They sit on the couch, and Alex pulls a pillow into her lap.

God, it’s so much easier on the same couch.

“I owe you an apology,” Kara says, her eyes quickly darting to the cameras, letting Alex know that she remembers. “I was surprised, and kind of shocked, because I hadn’t ever thought that you might, uh, like girls.”

“It’s okay,” Alex starts, but Kara interrupts.

“No, it’s not. I shouldn’t have…I’ve always…we’ve both always been so focused on my problems, and my needs, and my life, and I just…I guess I forgot that you had stuff going on too. And that’s especially stupid after you told that you work for—” A small kick to her shin “—The FBI. I should have known then that we needed more balance in our relationship. That you were keeping things from me.”

“To protect you,” Alex whispers, but Kara nods.

“I know. I know that. And I’m not mad or anything. But I just mean, I didn’t learn my lesson, I guess.”

“Just because I kept one thing from you doesn’t mean I’m keeping everything from you.”

“No, I know.” Kara picks at a loose thread on the couch. “But you…you felt like you couldn’t tell me this, when you were wondering, and that’s…I want to be a better sister than that. I want to be someone you can come to when you’re wondering things, or doubting things.” Kara gives her a little smile, trembling and sad and her eyes are welling up. “I know you take being a big sister really seriously but I’m…I want to be here for you too, Alex, just like you’ve always been there for me.”

She grins a little, nodding just the tiniest amount to the cameras. “And not just for the, um, _punching stuff_ , but for the other stuff too.”

Alex reaches out and takes her hand. “You know I’m bad at that,” she mumbles, and Kara laughs.

“You’re the worst at that. But maybe we can figure it out together.”

Alex twitches a little bit, and Kara pulls her into a side hug. Alex shudders, letting out a sob. “I can't do this without you.”

Kara drops a little kiss on her head, whispering her promise into Alex’s hair. “You don’t have to.”

Alex’s sob is loud and wet, and Kara pulls her in tighter.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly. “I was really surprised earlier, and I meant to say that I love you and I’m so happy for you, and I’m so excited to meet this woman you’ve fallen for, but all I said was ‘wow.’ And that was really shitty of me. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not, but I promise to be so excited and enthusiastic that you’ll never have to wonder again, okay?”

Alex lets out a long sigh, some of her tension falling out of her body. “Deal.”

“So. Tell me about this girl.”

Alex sits up a little bit, wiping under her eyes. “Um, she’s…”

“Oh my god. You’re like, glowing!”

“Shut up!”

“Never!”

Alex smacks her on the arm, and Kara pretends to grimace, just a second too late.

“Seriously. Tell me about the girl who has you all dopey.”

“Her name is Maggie. She’s…um. God, I just like her so much, you know? She’s so…she’s smart, and she’s tough, and she’s…”

“She’s what?”

“Beautiful. She’s just, beautiful.”

“So are you,” Kara says, playing with a strand of her hair. “So are you.”

* * *

They’re washing the dishes after dinner. Alex had cooked with what Maggie had brought home—just a simple stir fry—and now they’re standing together, washing and rinsing and cleaning up, and it’s so domestic that Alex wants to bottle it up and keep it in her heart forever.

Maggie keeps touching her—tapping her hip to get her to slide over, purposefully bumping shoulders, smacking Alex’s butt once on her way to put the spices away.

Alex loves it.

She told Maggie everything over dinner, and Maggie had held her hand and kissed her and celebrated with her and then revealed some chocolate she’d stashed away for a special occasion.

Maggie is really and truly the best girlfriend in the world.

Alex likes her _so_ much.

“Are you planning to tell your mom?”

It’s a nice way of saying it. Part of what happens next on the show is meeting each other’s families. There’s absolutely no way the producers would let Alex get away with not telling her mom.

“I’m making Kara tell her,” Alex admits, blushing a little bit. “I just…I think she’ll be okay with it after she thinks about it, but I don’t think our relationship could survive the stupid stuff she might say when she’s surprised.”

Maggie hums in agreement.

“I mean, Kara and I have the best relationship in the world, and it was really hard. My mom and I are just finally starting to get better. It’s so…I don’t know. Fragile. Like a truce, right now. I don’t want to mess that up, you know?”

“I do. That’s smart, Alex.”

Alex shrugs. “Whatever. Kara owes me.”

Maggie focuses on washing the dishes. She hasn’t found the right time to tell Alex that she knows about Kara. She wanted to build some more trust, and the apartment is fitted with cameras and microphones, so it’s not private.

So she just hums again, like it doesn’t matter why Kara owes her. But she knows. She knows everything.


	12. Meeting the Parents

**DAY 18: MEETING THE PARENTS**

Eliza comes down from Midvale, and is staying at Kara’s apartment. The show gets all of their camera crew and everything there, setting up for Alex’s big conversation with her mom. Kara has done the pre-talk with her, much to the producers’ anger, but she’s been forbidden to tell Alex how it went.

So Alex is walking in blind.

But Maggie isn’t.

It had come down to Alex threatening to walk—to leave the show high and dry—for them to agree, but she’d managed to negotiate. She’ll go in blind, and Maggie won’t be there until Alex says so.

“Alex, come on,” Maggie had insisted. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

But Alex had shaken her head, firm and unyielding, like the badass DEO agent she is—which, she really means to tell Maggie about soon…somewhere actually private. “No,” she’d insisted. “You’ve already dealt with more shitty parental rejection than anyone should, ever. I’m not going to put you in that situation again.”

“I’m fine, Alex—”

But Alex had been firm. “Over my dead body, Maggie. If someone wants to disapprove of you, especially a parent, they’ll do so over my dead body. I mean that.”

Maggie had shaken her head a little bit. “I wish I thought you were joking.”

Alex had stepped forward, taking Maggie in her arms. “Once the coast is clear, I really want you to meet them. But I’m not…no. I’m not risking it. No one is ever going to hurt you like that again. I’m taking care of you too, remember?”

Maggie had dropped her head down onto Alex’s chest. “Thank you,” she’d whispered, but it had almost seemed like she was going to say something else.

So now Alex is walking into Kara’s apartment, and Maggie is waiting at the coffeeshop down the block.

The door opens, and Kara is on her, hugging her the second she can.

“Oof—hi, Kara.”

“Hi!” Kara beams.

“Hello Alexandra,” Eliza says, smiling that one smile that Alex can never quite figure out. “Come here.”

Alex walks forward, letting her mom hug her. Her mom doesn’t hug like Kara does—or like her dad did. Her hugs are shorter and less tight, but it’s okay.

“So,” Eliza says, after drinks have been passed out, and they’re all sitting on stools at Kara’s kitchen island, surrounded by cameramen and prowling producers. “Kara told me your big news.”

Alex nods a little, looking mostly down at the table and just flicking her eyes up every few seconds.

Her heart is slamming in her chest. Kara can clearly hear it, because she reaches out a hand to curl over Alex’s.

“I have to say, I’m glad that you asked her to tell me. But I’ve suspected for quite a while.”

Alex’s head shoots up. “What?”

“I’ve wondered since you shared a lab with that Rebecca in your first year of graduate school. You mentioned her a lot.”

Alex lets out a huge huff of air. That’s incredibly embarrassing.

“Why was it so hard for you to tell me?” Eliza’s eyes are soft and kind, and Alex hates that she’s ready to cry again. The past few days have been far too much crying for just one person.

She crosses her hands in front of her chest, clasping them tightly together. “I, um…I feel like I’m letting you down, somehow.” She’s shaking a little, biting at her lips and trying to keep it together.

“Why would you being gay ever let me down?”

Alex lets herself say the closest thing to true that she can, in front of all of these cameras. “You always wanted me to have a regular life.” And she doesn’t have to dart her eyes over to Kara for all of them to understand. Kara was allowed to be different, and Alex wasn’t.

Ever.

But Eliza doesn’t seem to get it. “Alex, look at the life our family has led,” she says, obviously keeping it light and vague for the cameras. “Look at me. Look at your sister. I don’t think you believe I ever expected you to have a regular life.”

And that snaps a thought into Alex’s mind, so sharp and fast that she can’t believe she never saw it before. Maybe…maybe her mom hadn’t meant that she could never be different. Maybe she’d meant that as long as it wasn’t _alien different_ , it wouldn’t matter. That Kara simply threw off the curve of what was okay and what wasn’t. As long as it wasn’t flying, it was fine.

And then Eliza says one more thing. “You were always going to be different, Alex, because you were always exceptional.” She looks serious now, and Alex’s heart is tingling. “And I love you, however you are.”

Alex is crying even before they hug, but it’s Kara whose loud sobs keep catching the microphone.

* * *

The producers make the call, and Maggie leaves the coffeeshop with her escort, her least favorite producer Chad. He walks her up to Kara’s apartment, and after his nod, Maggie knocks on the door.

Alex opens it, and she’s been crying but she’s smiling. She wraps Maggie in a hug, and just sinks into her.

“You okay?” Maggie asks, as quietly as she can.

“Yeah. I’m good.” Alex pulls back, just enough to look at her. “I’m good. You ready?”

Maggie grins at her, hiding her tsunami of fear behind her cocky smile. “Of course.”

Alex steps back, and…holy shit.

It’s Supergirl.

Like, she knew intellectually, but standing right in front of her, in a sunny kitchen, just a few feet away, is a whole other thing.

She’s blonde and strong and tall, and she could kill Maggie with her eyeballs, and she’s beaming and rocking up onto the balls of her feet—she could _fly_ if she rocked just a bit harder—and she’s Supergirl and it’s all quite surreal.

Maggie’s met plenty of aliens—even dated some—but this is a whole new level.

“Hi!” Supergirl gushes, rushing straight at her. “I’m so happy to finally meet you!”

Maggie’s inside a hug before she can blink, and she wonders if that actually happened at human speed. Supergirl smells like sunshine and gingersnaps, and she’s squeezing extremely tightly, and wow. Okay.

If all goes to plan, this is her future sister-in-law.

 _Supergirl_.

Luckily, Supergirl’s mom seems entirely non-Super. She’s smiling too, the kind mom smile that always makes Maggie anxious about when the other shoe will drop. But she’s walking forward towards Maggie, and Maggie can feel Alex’s hand on her back, steadying her, so she plasters on her own smile.

“Hi, Dr. Danvers.”

“Oh please,” Supergirl’s mom says, waving her hand in the air in a very Alex-like move. “Eliza.”

Maggie tries not to wince.

“Eliza,” she says, like the name isn’t a million small knives into her gut. She hasn’t heard a mom say that name since Valentine’s Day when she was fourteen.

But this mom is quickly giving her a hug—much less tight and personal than Supergirl’s, thank god—and she smells nothing like Maggie’s mom. She’s blonde and white and smells a little bit like lavender and she’s pulling away quickly enough that Maggie isn’t entirely overwhelmed.

Alex is saying something, but her heartbeat is so loud in her ears that Maggie can hardly hear anything. It isn’t until Supergirl looks at her, slightly concerned, that Maggie realizes Supergirl can _hear her fucking heartbeat_.

God damn, this is trippy as fuck.

“So,” Supergirl’s mom is saying, settling down on an armchair across from the couch. “I don’t know very much about this show, or how it works. Tell me, girls, what was it like? What happened?”

Kara drops into the other armchair, leaving the couch for Alex and Maggie. Alex sinks down on it, clearly comfortable in this apartment, and Maggie perches on the edge, a good foot away.

She lets Alex explain the show to her mom, and tries to calm herself down.

The combination of Superhero and Actual Mom is really fucking her up.

“So, Maggie,” Supergirl’s mom finally says, pulling Maggie out of her spiral. “I’m of course not surprised that you fell in love with my daughter. She’s quite extraordinary. But tell me: what was it about her that made you want to be with her?”

Maggie’s breath catches. It’s weird, because they’ve been engaged for over a week now, but they haven’t said _I love you_ yet. Maggie’s wanted to say it—she’s felt it—but it’s so soon. Lesbian u-haul jokes aside, it’s been eighteen days.

But, on the other hand, they’re supposed to get married in less than three weeks and they’re engaged and it’s fucking true, so.

It’s complicated.

“I…” Maggie looks over at Alex, and suddenly everything is less scary. Supergirl is suddenly just Alex’s kid sister, and Supergirl’s mom is just a person who loves Alex. “I mean, the first thing that struck me was how brave she was. Doing what she did, agreeing to come out to the world on tv…I can’t think of anything braver.”

Kara makes a little squealing noise, and Eliza hums her approval. Alex is blushing, but she’s scooting closer. She easily takes Maggie’s hand in her own, and Maggie sucks in a breath. She looks over at Eliza quickly, but she’s just smiling at them, like she’s happy.

Like this is something she could have wanted for her daughter.

A lot rises up inside of Maggie, but she shoves it down, firm and practiced.

“So that was our first date. And on our second, I just loved how she talked about her work. She was so passionate, and obviously so smart and capable and badass, and it just made me want to know her even more. And she was so funny, and kind, and also just…I don’t know. Real. Everything she said just made me want to be around her, you know?”

“Wow, that’s a really good answer. I was gonna say you fell for me when I told you about cheating at Battleship.”

Maggie laughs. “I mean, that definitely helped.”

Alex beams at her, like she’d want to kiss her if it weren’t for her family staring at them.

They only break apart at Kara’s indignant squawk. “Wait, Alex! What the heck! I _knew_ you were cheating!”

* * *

The rest of the evening passes without drama—despite what the producers were hoping for—but Maggie doesn’t truly relax until she and Alex are back in the car, driving back to their apartment. It’s dark and quiet, just headlights in front of them and sound of their tires on the smooth streets. There aren’t any cameras or producers with them, and Maggie sighs with the peace of it.

“You okay?” Alex is looking over at her from behind the steering wheel, checking in on her, and affection throbs in Maggie’s chest. Alex is sweetest partner.

“Yeah, I’m good.” Maggie stretches a bit in her seat. “That went really well, it seemed like.”

“Yeah, I think it did.”

“I gotta say, meeting your mom was a lot less stressful than I’d expected.”

Alex hums a question, and Maggie, tired and off-camera and completely comfortable with Alex and finally relaxed, doesn’t think before she talks.

“Yeah, I think everyone should meet Supergirl at the same time. Really takes the edge off.”

Alex slams on the breaks. Maggie’s thrown forward, her seatbelt cutting into her neck and slamming into her chest.

Alex is turning to look at her, something horrified and suspicious in her eyes. Her face is lit an eerie blue by the streetlights, and they’re at a dead stop in the middle of the street.

“What did you say?”

She looks menacing all of a sudden, and Maggie shudders.

“Alex, please. Just, pull over first before we get killed.”

Alex does—jerkily maneuvering the car into an empty parking lot. She puts the car in park, pulls the brake, and turns, staring daggers at Maggie.

Maggie finds herself—alone with the woman she’s definitely in love with—slowly putting her hands up in surrender. “Hey, it’s okay,” she says softly, using her hostage negotiator voice. “It’s okay.”

Alex looks like she can’t decide if she wants to deny everything or bury Maggie six feet under. Maggie decides to offer her a third option.

“I’ve known for a while,” she says, soft and gentle. “I haven’t said anything to anyone, and I won’t. I haven’t mentioned it because I was never sure that we weren’t being filmed. I’m sorry; I didn’t know how to tell you that I knew.”

Alex just stares at her, something like murderous, and Maggie has a flash of realization that Alex may not be the plain old FBI agent that she’s pretended to be. Other parts of her story haven’t quite matched up, and Maggie had simply assumed it was a security clearance—and international Netflix production—issue.

But, possibly, the sister of Supergirl who looks like she’s about to dissect her fiancée for knowing the truth may be more than what she seems.

“I promise,” Maggie says again. “I’ll keep her secret. You can trust me, Alex.”

Alex finally, finally, relaxes just a smidge. She unclenches her hands from her lap, and Maggie wonders if there’s a weapon hidden under the driver’s seat.

Alex leans back in her seat, blinking, her body uncoiling, like a predator deciding to let their prey go free.

“How?”

“In the pods,” Maggie starts, and Alex looks over at her in surprise.

“Since then?”

“Yeah. You, um, remember when you told me about Kara’s aunt? I figured out that you must have been talking about Myriad, and because I work for the science division I knew that the people behind it were Kryptonian. So then it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”

Alex groans, dropping her head on her seat. “Remind me to tell J’onn to delete that footage tomorrow,” she mumbles, and Maggie smiles a little at her.

“I really have wanted to tell you that I knew,” she admits. “I hope you know that.”

Alex nods a bit, still clearly freaked but easing off. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. I do.” She lets out a big shuddering breath. “Thanks for being so careful, I guess.”

Maggie nods, but waits, letting Alex talk at her own pace.

“I guess…I guess I should tell you that I’m not FBI,” she says, staring out the windshield. “I was wondering when I could tell you, and I guess tonight turns out to be the night.”

Maggie picks at her fingernail. “What are you?” She tries to sound kind, non-accusatory, but she’s kind of mad. Alex had concealed who her sister was—that was clearly the right move—but now she’s admitting to actively lying about her job. That’s less cool.

“Have you heard of the DEO?”

Oh. _Oh_. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re a DEO agent?”

“Yeah. I was recruited out of grad school, because of Kara. And my dad worked there too. And I don’t know what you’ve heard—it used to be really anti-alien, but we have new leadership and we’re not, anymore. He’s…we help aliens, now, too. And Supergirl works alongside us.”

“You’re black ops,” Maggie says, her brain stuck in a loop.

“Yeah, but only because aliens were a secret for so long. Other than Superman, I mean. We had to be off the books, because no one could know about alien life on Earth. But now we’re, I mean…we’re still clandestine, but way less. I’ve been briefed by the President. Less cloak and dagger for sure.”

This is a lot of information all at once. Tonight Maggie met Supergirl and Supergirl’s mom who is also her fiancée’s mom, and her fiancée works for a black-ops anti-alien federal agency that maybe likes aliens?

It’s a lot.

“What’s your job?”

“I’m a field agent, and I’m also part of our scientific team. Like I told you I was, just with, um…different letters. And cooler weapons. I lead a team of field agents, and my scientific background is in bioengineering and xenogenetics, like I said. I didn’t lie about any of that.”

“I remember…you said that you were in a bad place before you were recruited to the FBI. But that…that place you went, where they trained you to kill people, and you finished your dissertation…that was the DEO?”

“Yeah.”

“How long have you been there?”

“Almost four years.”

“And your family knows?”

“They do now.”

Maggie looks over, confused, and Alex gives her a little smile. “They didn’t, for a long time. But then Kara came out as Supergirl, and…here we are. No more secrets between the two of us.” Alex reaches out a hand, softly resting it on top of Maggie’s. “And no more between us, I hope,” she says, her voice almost a whisper. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before. I wanted to. I hope you believe that.”

Maggie sighs—heavy and a little freaked.

“It’s a lot to take in,” she admits, and Alex nods.

“I know.”

“Let’s go home,” Maggie says, rubbing at her face, suddenly tired. “I think I need to sleep on it.”

Alex squeezes her hand before nodding and pulling out of the parking lot, silently driving them back to the apartment.

* * *

Maggie goes to sleep, still a bit freaked out.

In the morning she’s sitting up at the kitchen counter, drinking coffee and ostensibly reading the paper, but mostly just thinking.

There’s a loud whooshing sound, and suddenly there are pancakes in front of her, steaming and huge and perfect. She looks up, jaw dropped, and sees Supergirl, in full costume. She’s absolutely beaming.

“Good morning!” she chirps, her cape waving magnificently behind her. “Alex told me that you know! Welcome to the Super Friends!”

Maggie just blinks at her, and there’s a snorting sound from behind her. She turns to see Alex—disheveled and still in her pajamas, her hair sticking up everywhere, so pretty that it hurts—padding into the kitchen.

“We’re not calling it that,” she admonishes, shaking a finger at Supergirl, but the hero just giggles.

“Enjoy your breakfast, darling sister! And don’t worry about the cameras! Winn jammed the signal for me! Okay, see you later!”

Maggie blinks against the onslaught of information.

Alex seems more used to it. “You’re not staying?” she has one eyebrow up, like this might be an imposter. “For _pancakes_?”

“I’m meeting Lena for brunch,” Supergirl says. “I gotta dash. Love you guys!”

She takes off, literally flying out the window. Maggie looks down at the stack, and notices that one pancake is missing.

Alex rolls her eyes and leans forward, pecking Maggie on the cheek. “Good morning, beautiful,” she says, right into Maggie’s ear. Maggie shudders.

Alex pulls off a small piece of pancake, eating it with her fingers. “Oh, man. These are from that place in Seattle. Best pancakes on the west coast.”

Maggie blinks. She holds her hand out. “They’re still hot,” she says dumbly.

Alex just smiles. “Perks of marrying into a super family,” she hums.

They eat the pancakes. They’re delicious.

* * *

Alex had lied about one big thing, but she’d been as close to truthful as possible, Maggie reasons. And she gets it. National security is a thing. And paranoia must be second nature, when your new little sister is Superman’s cousin twelve year old cousin.

Maggie decides to forgive Alex—to wipe the slate clean, and to start over. Any further lies or huge omissions will be a problem, but what happened in the past is acceptable.

She tells Alex this, over lunch, and Alex drags her into the bedroom to express her appreciation. Several times.

Maggie laughs into Alex’s neck, and Alex kisses down her body again, turning Maggie squirming and breathless for another reason.

They’re gonna be okay.


	13. Reunion Episode

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I know lots of you may be confused and or mad at this chapter title, so lemme say a few things. Yes, we're skipping forward in time, a bit more than a year. What happens next on the show is that they plan their weddings--shopping for dresses, being stressed, having bachelorette parties--and then they get married. And there are lots of very lovely fics about Alex and Maggie planning their weddings, and I didn't want to write another. It didn't feel very interesting to me right now in the context of this story. What I like about the show, and about this prompt, is the first two weeks of the experiment. After that it's just like Married at First Sight or Temptation Island or 90 Day Fiancee (ALL SHOWS I LOVE). But I didn't want to write those shows.
> 
> So, here we are! The reunion is this chapter and the next. The next chapter focuses on Alex and Maggie's relationship, and fills us in on everything we've missed since the time jump. I have it drafted, but please let me know in the comments what you want to make sure to hear about in the next chapter.
> 
> Thank you for being here with me, and lightening up my first 23 days in isolation! Each and every one of you is a gem. Please stay safe, stay at home if you can, and always be in touch. Heart you all.
> 
> Enjoy the drama.

** DAY 390: THE REUNION  **

“Hi everyone, I’m Vanessa Lachey.”

“And obviously, I’m Nick Lachey.”

“And welcome to the Love is Blind reunion!”

They’re all instructed to clap. Olivia elbows Alex sharply in the ribs, and Alex belatedly puts her hands together and doesn’t roll her eyes.

“I love it!” Vanessa says into the camera. “I wish you could feel the energy in this room!”

Alex blinks. The energy in the room is…very uncomfortable. She’s not sure they want the viewers are home to be able to feel it.

“Now, we have seen all of our contestants fall blindly in love with each other. They’ve connected emotionally and physically. They have made up, they’ve broken up, they’ve made up, and some of them even made it down the aisle.”

“That’s right!” Obviously Nick says, with much less chemistry and excitement than Vanessa. “And we’re here to catch up with the participants, to talk about the results of this blind love experiment, and to learn their reactions to seeing it all play out on screen.”

Alex grimaces. This doesn’t sound fun at all.

“You guys,” Vanessa says, looking around the room. “It’s so fun to see you all again!”

Everyone makes polite sounds. Alex gets another elbow in the ribs, and manages to fake a smile. They’re all sitting on couches arranged in a U shape facing the cameras, just like at every reunion show of every reality show.

“It’s like a family reunion!” Obviously Nick adds. It would be more convincing if Alex couldn’t see his teleprompter.

“And,” Vanessa adds, smiling, “It’s like a true family reunion, that you don’t really want to go to.”

Alex plasters a bland smile on her face as a camera tracks to her. She’s more than aware that she and Maxwell are going to be sharing a split screen for a good chunk of the night. She can’t wait for it to be over.

“Okay,” Vanessa says, clapping her hands together. “Let’s start off with some updates. Raise your hand if you’re currently single.”

Alex looks around at the group.

Maxwell, Whitney, Stephanie, and Duke all raise their hands. Alex blinks, a few times. That’s…messy as fuck.

“Okay,” Obviously Nick says. “Raise your hand if you’re married to your fiancée from Love is Blind.”

Jane, Maura, Olivia, and Matt raise their hands.

“Alex,” a voice hisses in her ear.

“Oh, right,” Alex mutters, laughing. She throws her hand in the air, and everyone else laughs.

“Did you forget, Alex?”

“No,” she says, blushing. “I was just looking around.”

Maggie, next to her, rolls her eyes. “My wife, everybody,” she deadpans. Everyone laughs again, and Alex rolls her eyes but kisses Maggie on the cheek. The camera zooms in on her, and she’s sure this will make it to air.

Like with everything, they’re filming way more than will make it to the one fifty-minute reunion special, but Alex has a pretty good idea of what sells, at this point.

The show, as it aired, focused mostly on Matt and Olivia as the dream couple, and ate up the drama between Whitney, Maxwell, Duke, Stephanie, and, unfortunately Alex.

“Okay,” Vanessa says. “Raise your hand if you’re in a relationship with your Love is Blind fiancée, but not married to them.”

Morgan and Davis raise their hands. Alex is bored already. She doesn’t give a shit about them.

“And,” Obviously Nick says, raising his eyebrows. He’s excited about this part, they can all tell. “Raise your hand if, at any point since filming, you’ve been in a relationship with someone in this room who wasn’t your Love is Blind fiancée.”

It’s super quiet.

Whitney and Duke raise their hands.

Everyone else is instructed to make surprised sounds, like they didn’t know, even though literally all of them knew in horrifying detail.

“Well,” Vanessa says, grinning at the camera. “I’m going to need a _lot_ of details, everyone. Let’s get started!”

“So, let’s start with Matt and Olivia.” Vanessa gushes about their love story, and they cuddle into each other on the couch next to Alex. They gush for a while about their marriage, their perfect little love story. On the big screens set up above the cameras, they play some highlights from their relationship on the show for all of the contestants to see. They’ll be edited into the main broadcast when this airs, but they want to get footage of all of them reacting to their best and worst moments on a split screen.

The screens show Matt and Olivia’s first date, their proposal, seeing each other for the first time, the first night in Mexico, meeting each other’s families, their wedding. They include some of the sweeter moments too, like Matt struggling through asking Olivia’s abuelo for her hand in marriage in Spanish, and her abuelo kissing him on the cheek after saying yes. It’s honestly delightful.

Alex doesn’t need an elbow in the ribs to smile for the cameras. They’re legit adorable.

They chat for a while with Vanessa and Obviously Nick, giving updates on their relationship and when they’re thinking about trying to get pregnant, which seems very personal and weird to Alex.

Maggie slips a hand into Alex’s while on-screen Olivia’s walking down the aisle, and Alex drops a quick kiss on her head, cuddling in closer.

It’s Day 390 and Alex sure isn’t sick of her yet.

After Matt and Olivia, the hosts and cameras turn their attention to Jane and Maura, who are sitting on the next couch over. They play the same clips—their pod dates, Jane proposing, their first looks in which Jane’s eyes nearly fell out of her head, their first night in which Maura called it “intercourse” so many times that Jane nearly walked out. But then the narrative of the clips shifts. They show a long cut of Maura meeting Jane’s family, which was just as painful to watch on TV as it was to hear about from Jane in person right after it happened.

They all watch as Jane’s youngest brother, despite having a pregnant girlfriend, incessantly hits on Maura. Maggie had asked Jane, back right after it happened, if he was a homophobe or just an idiot, and Alex is pretty sure that it’s a heaping serving of both.

On-screen Maura looks like she’s reciprocating, in the clips, and Vanessa stops the reel so they can talk about it. “You got a lot of pushback for that, Maura. What do you want to say about it?”

Maura tilts her head a little bit, which Alex now knows, after a year of being good friends, is what she does to try to compose herself. “Watching it back on television was very enlightening,” Maura starts, clearly anxious because she’s being overly formal. “While my intention was to ingratiate myself to the Rizzoli’s, it became clear to me afterward that Tommy in particular misunderstood the nature of my relationship with him.”

Jane cuts in, shaking her head. “My brother, I love him, I swear I do, but he messed up big time. He was going after her, and she was nervous and didn’t know how to tell him to back off while she was trying to get everyone to like her. It was a really crappy situation and I don’t appreciate how it looked when it aired. It wasn’t really like that at all.”

Jane looks beyond pissed. Maggie jumps in, and a camera quickly swivels to her. “I wish the editors had included some more context,” she says, her voice even and calm but with steel underneath. Alex loves that voice. It’s her cop voice, and it’s sexy as hell. “After that dinner, Maura came over to our apartment, completely freaking out. She was so upset. She kept telling us how uncomfortable she was, and how scared she was that Jane would leave her. She was asking us, like, ‘is that how brothers are supposed to act?’” Maggie shakes her head a little bit. “I wish that had made it to air. I think it would have helped people at home understand what was going on.”

Maura nods, finally able to take up the thread again. “I’m an only child,” she says softly, “from a very formal, relatively austere family. That dinner was my first time ever at an event like that—a family dinner that was loud, chaotic, and crowded. Unscripted. I don’t…I’m not very good at understanding people, sometimes, and I didn’t understand what was happening with Tommy that night. And once I did, I didn’t know how to stop it.”

“But we worked it out,” Jane says, clearly trying to end the conversation. “I talked to my brother, and the rest of my family. Everyone is cool with Maura now. They love her. I swear, my ma likes her better than she likes me.” Jane shakes her head a little bit, but Maura laughs.

“That’s because I started sneaking vegetables into your food.”

Jane rolls her eyes, but everyone else laughs.

They speed through the rest of Jane and Maura’s arc, ending at their wedding. Maura had looked gorgeous in a designer dress, and Jane had been stunning in a bespoke dark blue suit, with her hair falling long and curly down her back.

Maura’s parents hadn’t attended.

After Jane and Maura, they move onto Davis and Morgan, who had left each other at the altar, but then started dating again after the show. Alex lets her face relax. She won’t be filmed for this part. She busies herself by drawing little designs on Maggie’s knee.

And then it’s the time they’ve all been dreading.

“So,” Vanessa says. “This season, there was a lot of drama between Maxwell and Whitney, Duke and Stephanie, and Alex. Let’s take a look.”

Alex tries not to grimace as the footage rolls. It’s exactly what she expects. It sets Maxwell up as being most interested in her, and proposing to Whitney only after Alex had shot him down on the last day in the pods. Honestly Alex hadn’t even realized what he was doing at the time, but in his mind he’d been gearing up to propose on the eighth day.

 _Quite the misread of the situation, there, buddy_ , Alex thinks.

Duke and Stephanie are shown dating and proposing, but Duke was clearly interested in Whitney too. And then there’s a long series of shots of them all at the first meeting in Mexico. The camera lingers on Duke when Whitney is introduced—he’s clearly drooling, and Stephanie clearly notices. Whitney drools back at him when his name is called, and Maxwell doesn’t even notice.

When Alex’s name is called, both Maxwell and Duke let out these horribly upset sounds, and Alex scrunches down on the couch. Maggie wraps an arm around her, and Alex curls in.

This sucks. She just wants to go home.

The footage keeps rolling. The football game, where Maxwell had touched Alex a million times, and Alex had ended up having to put her dress back on. There are a few cuts of Maggie staring daggers at him, but she’s largely left out of the edit.

According to these clips, the main things that happened in Mexico were:

  * Maxwell pining after Alex and Alex either callously not caring or performatively kissing Maggie to make up for him not kissing her
  * Whitney and Duke eye fucking over Stephanie’s head
  * Stephanie and Whitney subtly catfighting
  * Maxwell ignoring Whitney except for when Alex is kissing Maggie



It’s quite exhausting.

And then after Mexico, all the shit hits the fan, really.

They, of course, show what happened that night at the apartment that Maxwell had gotten completely shitfaced:

> _“Alex,” he drawls, walking up to her on her tiny little balcony, cornering her just as Davis was leaving. “Let’s be alone. I wanna talk to you. Alone.”_
> 
> _Alex rolls her eyes. “I’m busy, Max,” she says, brushing him off. “Maybe tomorrow, okay?”_
> 
> _But, “No,” he whines, grabbing her arm. “Now. Now, pretty Alex.”_
> 
> _Alex turns to him, ripping her arm out of his grip. “Don’t say that shit to me, Maxwell. I mean it.”_
> 
> _“But Alex!” He’s completely smashed, starting to slur his words. “Alex, I love you.”_
> 
> _“No, you don’t.”_
> 
> _She tries to walk past him, but he slides to block her way, not quite coordinated but still quick. “Yes I do, Alex. I always will.”_
> 
> _Alex forcibly moves him out of her way. “Go home, Max,” she says, and her voice is weary and frustrated. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”_
> 
> _“I’ll come back tomorrow,” he pledges, his hand up in the air, waving slightly. “And I’ll love you tomorrow too. Just less…blurry.”_
> 
> _“I won’t want to hear it tomorrow either,” Alex says, eyes narrowed. “I’m not interested, Max. I'm just not. You have to stop.”_
> 
> _“Maggie’s not enough of a man for you,” he slurs, and Alex finally spins and fully engages with him._
> 
> _“Don’t ever talk about her again,” she spits. “Leave us the fuck alone.” She turns on her heel and walks away from him._
> 
> _“Alex, you’re the love of my life!” he calls after her, but she doesn’t turn back around._
> 
> _“Go home, Max,” she calls over her shoulder. “And don’t come back.”_
> 
> The clip comes to an end, and Vanessa turns to Maxwell, who is sitting between Maura and Whitney on the second couch. “That was tough to watch,” Vanessa prompts. “What was it like for you to see it like this?”

“It wasn’t my finest hour,” he says, but his voice is light, like he hadn’t grabbed Alex’s arm, and made her uncomfortable for weeks on end. “I was pretty drunk that night, and that’s certainly not how I wanted to present myself.”

“To Alex, or on television?” Obviously Nick asks.

“Both.”

Vanessa leans forward, capturing the cameras again. “I think the question everyone’s been asking is, did you mean it? Were you really in love with Alex?”

But Alex knows he isn’t going to give a straight answer. He’s a narcissistic douche with a god complex who got tossed to the side by three whole women on international TV. He’s got a lot of personal PR to do in the next few seconds.

“I certainly felt a deep connection with Alex,” he says to Vanessa, his tone completely practiced and insincere. Alex wants to throttle something. Maggie’s arm is tight around her shoulders and Alex is gripping Maggie’s knee hard enough to leave a bruise. “It’s not often that I find a woman that I’m attracted to who can keep up with me.”

Alex lets herself roll her eyes. Both Jane and Maggie make choking sounds, and Whitney tosses her hair like a pissed off horse.

“But, no. I got swept up in the things, I suppose. I’m used to getting what I want, when I want it. It’s one of the perks of being as successful as I am.”

Alex considers vomiting on the floor. Olivia is silently laughing into Matt’s chest but trying to keep it together.

He’s such a fucking douche.

“But I admit, I didn’t handle Alex’s rejection as well as I could have.”

“Alex?” Vanessa leans forward, looking over at Alex. “How do you respond to that?”

Alex chews on her lip. She and Maggie had practiced at home, but she really just wants to speak her mind and tell everyone how fucking horrible he is.

But, luckily for everyone involved, Maggie speaks up first.

“I’m sorry, I know everyone wants to hear from Alex, and you will, but I just want to say something here. I think what Maxwell did to Alex, not just that night on the balcony but in Mexico too, and basically the whole time, was incredibly fucked up.” He makes a loud sound, but she holds up her hand, her face stern and terrifying.

Alex loves her.

“No, let me say this. You pursued her. Actively, and incessantly. You pursued her, after she explicitly told you that she wasn’t interested. That’s not okay. That’s not acceptable human behavior, Maxwell. She was clearly uncomfortable around you for a long time, and then she told you to stop, to leave her alone, and you didn’t. She said no, and you kept going.”

He makes a protesting sound again, but she says just one more thing. “That’s grounds for a restraining order, Maxwell. I’m not joking. I know Jane can speak to this as well, but when a woman comes to the cops and says ‘I told him no, and he kept touching me and showing up at my house,’ we give that woman a restraining order.”

“We really do,” Jane agrees, staring him down from Maura’s other side.

“It never came to that, because Alex can take care of herself and didn’t want to create even more drama, but I need you to understand this for your future. I’m not talking about Alex, here, I’m talking about you. You can’t treat women like this. You can’t. It’s illegal and immoral, and I want to make it crystal clear to everyone who has watched this show: if someone is pursuing you like Maxwell pursued Alex, and you’ve told him no, like Alex did, and he keeps coming, you need to tell someone. Reach out and get help. You don’t have to live like that. That’s not what healthy love and affection look like.”

Vanessa and Obviously Nick look extremely uncomfortable. Jane looks proud, and Alex can’t help herself. She takes Maggie’s face in her hands, and kisses her, soundly on the lips.

“I guess the only thing I want to say about all this,” Alex says, throwing her script out the window, “is that I was frustrated with the editing. When I saw it on TV, it looked like I was encouraging it. Like I was always standing next to him, talking to him. But it’s…the producers tell you where to stand, who to talk to. Not what to say, but, like…” Alex runs her fingers through her hair, pissed off, and Matt steps in, gracefully taking the thread from her.

“It was clear that this thing between Maxwell and Alex would make good TV,” he says, and everyone knows none of this will make it to air. “And so they kept putting Alex in positions where he could hit on her, and say stuff to her. And Maura too. And that was really hard on them. We all saw it. And then they edited it like Alex was choosing to be there, and she wasn’t.”

“The show you saw made it look mutual,” Alex says. “And it wasn’t.” She carefully looks into the camera when she says it, not over to Maxwell. “I was never interested in him. The only person I ever wanted to be with was Maggie. And if that wasn’t clear when it aired, I hope it’s clear now. I didn’t want any of that.”

Vanessa, Obviously Nick, and the producers try to reshoot, but Maggie, Alex, Jane, and Matt refuse to say anything but what they’ve already said. The production team is clearly furious at being blamed for creating this drama—in ways they obviously won’t air—but the contestants aren’t going to make it easy on them.

They created this drama, they can deal with it.

Whitney, Duke, and Stephanie get pulled in next.

The clips detail how, as Maxwell pulled away from Whitney, she started moving in on Duke, and how Stephanie had fought back.

Maxwell and Whitney had a horrible fight on the last night in Mexico, which they’re all forced to relive together now. Alex had hated watching it when it had aired, and she hates watching it right now, in front of them. Maxwell is shifting on his couch, and Whitney is scooting further away from him, knowing what’s coming.

A few more clips, and then it happens. On-screen Matt opens his bathroom door during one of their mandatory group happy hours in the apartments, and there they are. Whitney and Duke, in flagrante delicto.

The Whitney on screen screams, and the real Whitney winces and covers her face. The production team blurred out what they needed to, but the scene is clear. She has a leg wrapped around Duke, who’s pants are sagging down around his thighs, and they’re clearly mid-fuck.

On-screen Matt yells, surprised and frozen. On-screen Olivia, Jane, and Maggie come skidding in, ready to defend him from a murderer, and all of them make a variety of horrified sounds. On-screen Duke slams the door shut again, but not before all of them get a real eye-full.

“Oh my god,” on-screen Olivia shrieks, nearly hysterical with the surprise of it. “In my bathroom!”

On-screen Maxwell comes barging in, shouting all kinds of things, and on-screen Stephanie starts screaming bloody murder the second on-screen Duke comes out of the bathroom.

It’s a mess.

Vanessa and Obviously Nick spend the next thirty minutes talking with the four of them about The Incident In the Bathroom, as they’re calling it. They all defend themselves while giving the necessary apologies to not look like psychopaths. Whitney cries at how mean everyone was on twitter after it aired. Duke looks frankly pretty proud of himself. Maxwell looks bored. Stephanie says a lot of very cruel and likely very true things about how Whitney couldn’t keep her own man so kept trying to take other people’s.

Of course, the show wanted to keep up the drama, so it had forced the four of them to “stay together” until the weddings. There was a very dramatic staged scene between Whitney and Duke the night before their weddings, talking about if they wanted to marry each other or their original partners.

They both ended up walking down the aisle to their original partners, but Whitney left Maxwell at the altar.

Stephanie married Duke, but didn’t look too happy about it.

“So, Stephanie,” Vanessa says. “You raised your hand that you’re single now. Tell us about what happened between that wedding and today.”

Stephanie tosses her silky hair over her shoulder. “I’m a really forgiving person,” she starts, and Maggie makes an amazing sound next to Alex. Alex gets to use her own elbow this time, which she very much enjoys, but Maggie’s right. Stephanie is quite possibly the cattiest, most judgmental person she’s ever met. “So after Duke cheated on me with Whitney, I wanted to work through it. I wanted to marry him, you know?”

She makes herself cry, just a few artful tears, that somehow don’t smudge her makeup. It’s impressive, honestly. Maggie’s theory is that she’s trying to become the next Bachelorette, and Alex can see it. They’ve already decided that if she does it, they’re gonna watch it every week with Jane and Maura for merciless mocking.

“But then, after we got married, he kept talking to her. I was really uncomfortable with it, you know, because of their history. And then after a few months of being married, I caught them together. I broke it off with him, and that was it.”

“And when you say you caught them together,” Obviously Nick says, salivating with excitement at the ratings, “you mean Duke and Whitney, yes?”

“Yes,” Stephanie says, her voice nasal and piercing as always. “I caught them fooling around in his car.”

“That sounds painful,” Vanessa says, almost like a friend. But then she turns immediately to Duke. “Duke, Whitney. What can you share with us?”

“Obviously that’s not the way it should have gone down,” Duke says, clearly reciting lines that someone else wrote for him. “I really regret putting Stephanie through all of that. She’s a great girl, and I only wish the best for her.”

Vanessa blinks. That’s even more generic and useless than she’d been expecting, apparently. “Um, Whitney?”

Whitney looks like she’s been waiting to talk forever. “I mean, we’ve already established that Maxwell was like, madly in love with Alex, all while he was planning to marry me. Which is just, like, wow. When I was watching it, I just kept saying, like, _wow_. He was really saying all those things to her, you know! Like, right in front of my face. It was super embarrassing and, frankly, very upsetting.”

She shakes her head, like she’s trying to clear out the memories. Maggie’s entire body is tense, like if Whitney dares to say anything about Alex, she’ll be pounced on. Alex tucks a piece of hair behind Maggie’s ear, trying to calm her down. Maggie relaxes, just the tiniest bit. Alex wishes she could deploy her best stress-distraction-technique, but she doesn’t think stripping off her shirt and climbing into Maggie’s lap would go over very well.

At least not this close to Maxwell.

“And Duke was like, so nice to me, especially in Mexico,” Whitney says, and Maggie relaxes further. She seems to be skipping over the rest of the Alex stuff, thank god. “And he was really cute, and I guess I just got swept up in it! I mean every night I was being ignored by my fiancé, so I just wanted to feel like, you know, like _someone_ wanted me.”

“Yeah, but he was with me!” Stephanie’s leaning over Duke’s body, yelling right at Whitney. “He wasn’t just some random pool boy you could fuck to get Maxwell’s attention. He was my fiancé!”

“Well I didn’t develop feelings for any of the pool boys,” Whitney shoots back. “You can’t help who you fall in love with, okay? I’m sorry it was your boyfriend, but it just happened that way.”

They fight for a long time. Alex just leans back, trying to stay out of it. Matt and Olivia, next to her, seem to have developed some secret code for talking by tapping their fingers on each other’s arms, and Alex is instantly jealous. She wonders if maybe there could be a Supergirl emergency that would require a hasty exit.

Maggie leans into her arm, and Alex rests her head on Maggie’s.

She just wants to go home and be with her wife.


	14. Reunion Episode Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Each and every one of you—readers and lurkers and kudo-givers and commenters—are a fucking gift to me. Thank you for making my first month of isolation so rewarding, affirming, loving, fun, screechy, and wonderfully gay.
> 
> Please stay safe, stay strong, stay home if you can, and remember that it could always be worse. You could be quarantined with Maxwell Lord.

** DAY 390: THE REUNION  **

But finally, finally, the producers seem done with rehashing all the drama. They both turn to look at Alex and Maggie.

“Alex and Maggie,” Vanessa says. “You guys had a bit of a rocky start, didn’t you? Let’s take a look.”

Alex buries her face in her hands. She knows what they’re going to show. Maggie rubs her back, slow and soothing, and Maura squeezes her knee in a show of anxious bisexual support.

They show the first date, when Alex cried. They show Maggie talking about it with Jane, and Alex’s confessionals where she was completely freaking out.

“Alex,” Vanessa says softly. Alex pulls her face out of her hands. “What was it like, to come out on television?”

“Ummm.” Alex draws it out, and all the other queers laugh. “Horrible.” She smiles, a little painfully, and Maggie kisses her ear. “No, not really. But it was…man. It was really intense. I had people—people who I hadn’t talked to in ten years—popping up everywhere, finding me on social media, or stopping my mom on the street of my hometown, all kinds of ridiculous things, just to say that they saw it. Or that they already knew, or whatever. It was…I don’t know. I guess I knew it would be public, but I hadn’t thought people would care that much.”

“But they did,” Vanessa says.

“They really did.”

“Do you have any regrets?”

“Um…” Alex scratches her head a little bit, her shoulder pressing into Maggie’s. “If I had it to do over again, I would maybe try to come out to my sister before I went on the show. So that I could have been like, more chill about it on camera. Like, if I’d said it once or twice before, maybe I wouldn’t have cried in front of Maggie like that.”

“I liked it,” Maggie says, and her voice is husky and low, and Alex wants to rip her clothes off and just lay next to her, naked and comforted and safe.

“Aww,” Vanessa coos. “But see, it worked out!”

Alex nods. “It did. And I’ve gotten a lot of really nice messages from people, who have been questioning, or who are in their late twenties or thirties or forties or fifties, and just starting to figure it out. It’s been really amazing.”

“So, Maggie,” Obviously Nick says. “You left your proposal until literally the last minute! Viewers might not know this, but you guys had an emergency date at the 11th hour just to propose.”

Maggie nods, laughing, like the whole thing isn’t incredibly stupid. “We did, yeah.”

“Tell us about that. Why did you wait for so long?”

“I mean, it had been eight days,” she says, shrugging. “I’ve returned shoes after longer than eight days. It’s such a short amount of time to make that kind of decision about someone. But I talked to Matt about it, and he really helped me realize that if I felt something for her, something strong, that I should go for it. And he was right.”

She and Matt lean across their wives to fist-bump.

Alex kisses her on the cheek, because she can.

“Alex, what was it like, to go back into the pod after you thought it was over?”

“I was just glad to get to talk to her again,” Alex says, leaning back enough to be able to really look at Maggie. “I liked her so much, and if it was just an extra ten minutes to be with her before we both got sent home, that was worth it to me. And then she proposed, and I just kept thinking, I wish I’d changed out of my pajamas!”

Everyone laughs.

“They’re cute,” Maggie insists. “She still wears them.”

“And every time I do, she proposes again,” Alex rolls her eyes. “Like a huge nerd.”

Maggie kisses her cheek, loud and smacking, and everyone laughs again.

“So, Maggie, obviously Alex didn’t get to meet your family, because they aren’t a part of your life anymore.”

Maggie nods.

Alex grips her, tightly. She’s ready to stand up and walk off the stage if they try to make Maggie relieve her trauma again, right here for the audience.

But, luckily for everyone, Vanessa moves right past it. “But Alex did get to meet your best friend, Liz. And I think I speak for everyone in America when I say, she was a riot.”

Everyone laughs. Maggie groans. “Yeah, that’s Liz.”

“Let’s take a look.”

They play just a few clips from that afternoon. They were out at a park, and Liz had plopped down on a blanket next to Alex and started interrogating her on everything from her job to where she buys clothes to her favorite sex positions. It had been terrifying.

They show a quick confessional from Liz, where she looks into the camera and says, “Maggie’s the most important person in my life. And I like Alex, but I will one hundred percent stab her with a pen if she messes with my girl. One hurt feeling, and that bitch is dead.”

Maggie snorts with laughter, her hands over her face. Alex grins.

“Did that scare you, Alex? To have someone say that to you?”

But Alex just shakes her head. “Right before our second wedding, I actually gave her a knife,” she says easily, and Jane snorts. “I told her pens are pretty ineffective weapons, if you don’t know what you’re doing with them, and if I hurt Maggie then she had my permission to use the knife in whatever way she saw fit.”

Everyone is quiet for a moment, trying to figure out if Alex is telling the truth or suddenly got very good at lying.

“And I told her that I was glad that she had Maggie’s back so much,” Alex says, to make sure it’s clear. “Everyone deserves to have someone in their corner, and if that person is as fierce, and as terrifying, and as fun as Liz? Well. You’re a very lucky person, I think.”

“They’re like, besties now,” Maggie says. “It’s honestly a little terrifying.”

Alex gives an evil grin to the camera, and everyone laughs, but Maggie’s dead serious. It’s legit freaky, having her wife and her best friend in such cahoots. She’s extremely nervous about her next birthday, and Liz already mailed a box of sex toys and a box of lingerie to Alex for “Maggie’s Christmas present,” so.

She’s pretty sure her fear is warranted.

“Alex, another crowd favorite was your sister, Kara,” Obviously Nick says. “I think she cried at every single occasion.”

Alex laughs, and then they show a quick smash cut of Kara crying when Maggie met Eliza, when they went wedding dress shopping, at the bachelorette party, and at the wedding.

They even got Kara’s permission to show some of her Instagram Live from when she was watching the show. She filmed herself watching every episode to make a smash-cut reaction video, and they show the highlights here in the studio. She screams when Alex comes out, sobs when Alex cries, shrieks when Maggie talks to Jane about Alex, hugs her pillow when they start sharing secrets, and stands up and jumps around—positively screeching—when Maggie proposes.

They don’t show it, but she’d drawn a lot of pictures of Maxwell and then ripped them up during the second half of the show.

They jump right to her pointing at herself on tv, crying on Instagram at how she was crying on TV while Alex was trying on wedding dresses, and at their small, production-created wedding.

Alex is laughing so hard she’s crying at the end of the clip, and Maggie’s grinning. “She’s an amazing little sister,” she says. “I’ve never had one before, and it’s awesome. Plus, she’s always down for donuts. Like, any time of day or night. if you want a donut, she’ll have one with you.”

“Such a cop,” Alex jokes, shaking her head, and Maggie rolls her eyes.

“Such a fed.”

The teleprompters whirl, and Vanessa leans forward.

“Something that viewers pointed out,” Vanessa says, smiling at them like she’s genuinely happy for them, “is that the two of you never said ‘I love you’ on the show. Not even at your wedding. Tell us about that.”

Alex looks at Maggie and shrugs, and Maggie nods, starting to talk first. “It wasn’t something we talked about, or anything,” she explains. “But for me, everything else felt like it wasn’t on my timeline, you know. I had to propose after eight days, we had to get married after 37 days, all this stuff. It all felt really out of my control. But there weren’t any rules about when we had to say it, and so it felt like something I could decide to do, on my own time.”

“It felt like…I don’t know. It felt more real to me, when she said it,” Alex adds, her hand tight in Maggie’s. “She said it to me, one night in my apartment, when we were cooking dinner. It wasn’t being filmed, and no one else was there. She just stopped stirring, and looked right at me, and she said, ‘I really love you, and I want you to know that.’”

Everyone awws. “Yeah, that’s what I said!” Alex laughs. “But it just…I’d felt it for a long time, but I’d never been in love with anyone before, so I didn’t want to be first.” She laughs again. “And I knew it was a big deal for Maggie, so when she said it, it was…I don’t know. It felt so real, to me. It was so special. I’ll never forget it.”

“But you were already married by this point,” Vanessa says. “Didn’t that make it feel real?”

“Honestly, no,” Maggie admits, and Matt, Olivia, Jane, and Maura laugh. “It didn’t. It felt like a promise to each other, not exactly like a wedding. But telling Alex that I loved her, that I was in love with her, that felt like the start of a real forever together.”

“And, folks, they aren’t kidding,” Obviously Nick says, looking into the camera. “They actually got married again!”

Some people gasp.

Alex looks right into Maggie’s eyes and smiles. “We did,” she says, not looking away. “Just a month ago.”

“On the anniversary of the day we met,” Maggie adds, beaming her happiness right into Alex. “It was perfect.”

“We have a few pictures,” Vanessa says, and suddenly the screens are filled with pictures of their real wedding.

People make the appropriate appreciative noises, and Maggie grins at them. “I know, right? That dress is…man. Unreal.”

On-screen Alex is in a floor-length white lace dress. It’s a halter top that ties behind her neck, with most of her back exposed in a diamond shape, and it falls straight down past her hips, one with long slit over her right thigh.

“Yeah, but the suit,” Alex gushes. “I almost died.”

On-screen Maggie is wearing a white linen suit, perfectly fitted, with an ivory vest. Her hair is in a low bun, with a few wisps out. She’s the perfect soft butch, and love is just beaming out of her eyes in every picture.

“You’re both so gorgeous,” Olivia says. “It was so beautiful.”

There’s a picture of the six of them—Alex and Maggie in their wedding outfits, and Matt, Olivia, Jane, and Maura all gathered around them, hugging and smiling. There’s also one of Kara sobbing, which Alex quite likes.

“We wrote our own ceremony,” Maggie says softly. “We got to say all of the things we wanted, and got to make all of the promises that were really important to us.”

“My boss, who has been a dad to me for a long time, he officiated. We had friends play the music we walked down the aisle to. Kara sang at our reception, and Liz and my mom both made speeches. It was perfect. Just, exactly who we are, and how we want to be together.”

“It really felt like us,” Maggie adds. “I loved it.”

“We know we got legally married on the show,” Alex says, tucking that one hair back behind Maggie’s ear again, “But that second wedding, that was our wedding. That’s when we married each other. That’s when she really became my wife.”

“And how’s married life been treating you?” Vanessa asks, wiping her eyes a little bit.

“It’s honestly pretty dope,” Alex says, and Maggie shoves her. “What! I’m from California. I can say dope.”

“Tubular,” Maggie deadpans, and Alex rolls her eyes.

“I take it back,” Alex says to Vanessa. “It’s terrible.”

Everyone laughs again. Alex wonders how much of this will make it to air. It can’t be that entertaining, just watching her and Maggie like each other so much.

“No, it’s been really wonderful,” she says. “We’ve been doing all kinds of traditional couple stuff, like we got a new apartment together, and we adopted a dog.”

“Alex named her Gertrude,” Maggie tells everyone. “I almost divorced her.”

Alex keeps going, choosing to ignore such a malicious lie. “And we’ve also done some stuff that’s a bit less typical, but is very us.”

“Like what?” Obviously Nick asks, although he knows the answer.

“Like that,” Alex says, gesturing to the screens, where now there’s a picture of both of them in tactical gear, ready to rappel out of a helicopter.

Everyone gasps.

“This was just a training mission,” Maggie says quickly. “We don’t take selfies on real missions. But we’re both in law enforcement, as you all know, and we’ve been able to work together on some cases, which has been really fun.”

“Maggie is an absolutely brilliant detective,” Alex says. “It’s been so incredible to get to watch her work, and to work alongside her. I’d pity any criminals in National City if I didn’t find it so hot when she solves cases.”

“And nobody jumps out of a helicopter like Alex,” Maggie adds. “She’s just, _whoosh_. Absolutely fearless. I’ve never met anyone that would teach me how to jump out of a helicopter holding an anti-aircraft missile in my arms and then come home and make lasagna and cuddle up watching old Disney Channel movies. She’s…” Maggie shakes her head, smiling. “She’s the whole fucking deal, you know?”

Alex kisses her, long enough that the other start whooping, but she doesn’t care.

Maggie is the whole fucking deal.

To wrap up the show, Vanessa cries about how blind love truly is, but Alex doesn’t care.

She fell for Maggie in the pod in the first eight days, but she fell in love with her wife in a million small moments in the last 390 days, and that’s way better.

And now they never have to see Maxwell again.

That night, showered and fresh-faced and wearing sweatpants, in Alex and Maggie’s new apartment with Gertrude drooling on the carpet, the six of them cheers to it.


End file.
